


To Make You Stay

by UmbraeCalamitas, WhinyWingedWinchester



Series: Stitches & Scars [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brotherhood, Brotherly Love, Coming Out, Coming of Age, F/M, Feelings, Friendship, Gen, Gods, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Internalized Homophobia, It Gets Better, M/M, Magic, Major Character Injury, Medical Trauma, Monsters, Pagan Gods, Pre-Relationship, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Seidr, Self-Acceptance, Series, Sort Of, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Violence, Worldbuilding, sequels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-06-24 12:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19723330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbraeCalamitas/pseuds/UmbraeCalamitas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhinyWingedWinchester/pseuds/WhinyWingedWinchester
Summary: Months have passed since Fandral left Asgard and he and Loki are slowly repairing their friendship. Fandral thinks it's finally time the two of them meet up again, but Loki is injured during a hunt and left comatose and dying in the healing halls. With help from Yggdrasil, Sif, Thor, and a distrustful Fandral have to find a way to save Loki before he dies, and all the possibilities of a happy ending are stripped away.





	1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

* * *

Loki slipped into the cave behind the waterfall with practiced ease, the wards flicking against his skin like they were testing that he was really who he was. He waved a hand over himself, drying his clothes and hair, and made his way to the bed at the back of the cave. 

There was a thick roll of paper waiting for him by the pillows and he smiled to see it. 

Lying down on the bed, Loki unrolled the paper and spread it out beneath him. Fandral’s artistic style was easy to recognize now, even if he knew there was no one else but the two of them (and Yggdrasil) who could enter the cave. 

The drawing was another landscape, no doubt of some place Fandral had recently been. Loki didn’t recognize it from sight, but the thief was perhaps even more well-traveled than he was. Massive conifers stretched high into the sky, snow dusting their limbs, as mountains reached higher still behind them. There was snow on the ground and plants stubbornly pressing up through it, reaching for the sun. 

“Where is this?” He looked, but as always, Fandral gave him no clues beyond the picture itself. Loki would guess, and he would have to wait weeks before he received an answer. He reached under the pillow and pulled out the journal that was tucked there, leaning the drawing against the pillow so he could look at it as he wrote. 

_ Fandral -  _

_ Is it Midgard? I’ve never seen trees like that on Alfheim, nor so much snow.  _

_ Father is still arguing with the council about who to place in Ráðugr and Akaz’s positions. Neither of them have said anything, but the way Mother has been asking Sif to act as an additional guard during meetings, I think they might be considering her. It would be a nice change of pace, I think, having a woman on the council, and Sif isn’t afraid of sharing her opinions. We both know that. _

_ I think Father might actually be moving toward taking a new approach to how women are seen on Asgard. I suspect he knows he’s in for a fight, but putting Sif on the council might make things easier. I expect, if it does happen, I’ll have to deal with her looking like the cat that ate the canary. _

_ There has been mention of the peace treaty with Jotunheim, too. Just odd things here and there. Thor has probably heard more than I have, since he sits in the meetings more often, but Father mentioned it to me directly once. I’m not sure why, exactly. Perhaps he was testing to see how I would respond. I’ve been to Jotunheim before, however, and while I didn’t have much cause to meet with any of the Jotun, they’re just people. I suppose he’s worried about Thor’s penchant for throwing himself into battle with monsters, though.  _

_ He’s been different lately. Quieter. Not  _ **_quiet_ ** .  _ Can you imagine Thor quiet? Sounds dangerous.  _

_ There has been little else going on, though. Nothing exciting, beyond the bout of influenza that swept the lower town. I told you about that a few weeks ago. Sigyn’s children have all gotten over it and last I heard, it seems to have cleared up everywhere. I thought the whole palace was going to be down with it. Heimdall was sneezing, Fandral.  _ **_Heimdall._ ** _ I didn’t know the man **could** sneeze. _

_ I’m thinking of taking a trip soon. You mentioned that beach on Midgard, the one with the pink sand. I want to see it, so I might take a trip, investigate your claims of superior coffee, see what all the fuss is about.  _

_ You should know, people have started to be able to  _ **_tell_ ** _ when I’m coming here. I don’t know how, but I get accosted on my way. I was all but tackled this morning by Cook Kanil. I thought the woman was going to brain me with her cook pot. I think she might be more terrifying than Eir. _

_ But there is a basket in your chest with preservation spells on it that you’re supposed to take back to your cabin with you. I didn’t peek or steal anything, even though I can smell the pie she made you. I’m to send you that and her love.  _

_ You know you’re welcome to visit, if only to convince Eir you’re not dying somewhere. She’s a menace, really. _

_ Stay safe, and give Fen a scratch for me. _

__ \- Loki _ _

Loki scanned the entry again before closing the book and slipping it back under the pillow for Fandral to find. He crawled off the bed, taking the new drawing with him, and tucked it carefully into a seidr pocket. A moment later, he had Kanil’s clever seidr-warded picnic basket tucked away in the chest by the bed, and he headed back out of the cave. 

It had been six months since Fandral had left Asgard, taking his things and moving to his cabin on Svartalfheim. Loki hadn’t followed him, knowing that if he did, the thief was likely to run and not look back. It had been difficult, though. He hadn’t been sure where it left them, if they were even still friends, or if Fandral would have preferred if he just… let him go. 

It had taken two months before he’d worked up the courage to write Fandral a letter. It hadn’t contained any information, really. Mostly just ramblings of things that had gone on in the two months since Fandral left. He’d mentioned Thor’s hair, at one point, since it occurred to him that Fandral hadn’t know about Sif cutting his brother’s hair off, and he’d talked about Sif and Eir and everyone else mostly. Only at the end of the letter had he asked if they could stay in contact. He’d left the letter on the bed in the cavern behind the waterfall, not even certain if Fandral would ever return there, or if he did, if he would even answer Loki’s message. 

But Yggdrasil had whispered to him when there had been a letter left for him, and the two of them had started up a correspondence that eased Loki’s mind considerably. Or, as Sif put it, got him to stop moping around the palace like a dog missing his owner. 

Loki didn’t bother walking down the steep slope of stone. He simply stepped off the edge and let Yggdrasil catch him on one of her branches, moving along them at a leisurely pace as he thought about the pink sand Fandral had told him about. 

He’d been stuck in Asgard for weeks, confined to the palace in case he was needed to take the throne. His father had fallen into the OdinSleep to fight off the illness and Thor had started to exhibit symptoms even as he sat in court. 

Luckily for all of them, as the weather was never fun when Thor was  _ under the weather,  _ Thor managed to avoid anything beyond a bit of sneezing and a headache. Loki had somehow avoided it entirely, even as their mother was bedridden for a couple days and half the guards were sick. The Healing Halls had been busy, but his father was awake and back on the throne and Loki was itching for some adventure. 

He stepped off of Yggdrasil’s branches in the lower towns, letting his mind wander as he moved through the merchant district, his eyes scanning the items. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just perusing, when his attention was caught on a word.  _ Hound.  _

His mind came back to the present completely and he paused, turning his attention to the two merchants who were chatting from their respective stalls. 

“It might be nothing but rumor, you know well enough not to believe everything an elf says.” 

“Aye, but you have to admit, it’s worrying. If there’s a heart hound running about, my boys do trading in those parts. I don’t want them running afoul of the creature.” 

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” 

“Still, the hjartahundur--”

“Excuse me,” Loki said, stepping closer. “I’m sorry, but a hjartahundur. You say one was spotted?”

“Ah, Prince Loki! Good morning! It’s… the heart hound, yes. Well, _allegedly.”_ The pottery merchant made a face. “I didn’t see it myself, of course. I always thought they were nothing more than myth, but one of my loyal customers on Alfheim said her cousin saw one.” 

“On Alfheim?” Loki asked. 

“Ah, no. On Muspelheim, actually. Odd place for a heart hound, I would think. So… dry. Odd place for anyone, really. Why, I had a customer who came from there. One of the fire giants--”

“Excuse me,” Loki said again, smiling apologetically. “Do you happen to know where on Muspelheim this hjartahundur was spotted?”

The merchant looked at him in confusion. “Why?” he asked, sounding appalled. “You don’t plan to go and look at it, do you?”

Loki gave the merchant an easy, reassuring smile. “A threat to any of the realms is a threat to Asgard, and something that the king must be informed of, my good merchant. I wouldn’t want one of Asgard’s people to be hurt. Nor such fine merchants as yourselves.” 

“Ah, well, the prince is generous.” The merchant was blushing. “Of course, my prince. The caves to the north, as my elven customer told me. A rather dismal place. Much too dry.” 

“Thank you,” Loki said with a smile. “Your loyalty to Asgard is much appreciated.” 

He left the merchant stammering and blushing, moving off before he could be accosted as the smile fell from his face. A hjartahundur. He’d thought he’d rid the world of all of them, but there’d been  _ another _ sighting. 

No matter. He’d deal with it as he had all the rest. He’d sworn to wipe them out of existence. Hopefully this one would be the last.

* * *

**_A letter, my walker. From your little love._ **

Fandral grinned at the shadows twirling about his legs. “Oh really? Already?” 

**_Already._ **

That was… unusual. Loki usually left a good two or three weeks between their journal entries. He whistled sharply to Fen, and they took the four steps through the shadows to the waterfall cave. The wards brushed over his skin like feathers, and he smiled when he caught a whiff of Kanil’s blueberry pie. 

“Not subtle at all,” he laughed. “Nosy old thing.” 

Kanil had taken to sending him blueberry pies, and tarts and scones and anything else she could get the berries into. She’d also baked a seidr wrapped note into the last one. A list of demands that he come home immediately. He had it pinned on the wall of his cabin. 

The journal was where it always sat, and he let himself fall backwards onto the bed to read it. 

Loki always kept their topics lighthearted, spoke of the people around him and of Thor and Sif especially. 

He set the journal down with a sigh and sat up slowly. He wondered, if maybe it was time for them to  _ talk _ . 

Fandral took his pen out and turned the page in the journal, writing before he could change his mind. 

_ ‘Loki -  _

_ Thank Kanil for me, won’t you? The pie is as magnificent as always, though a break from blueberry  _ **_everything_ ** _ might be nice.  _

_ There is a festival of lights on Svartalfheim this week. In two days time, actually.  _

~~_ I was thinking _ ~~

~~_ Maybe it’s been long eno _ ~~

~~_ I mis _ ~~

_ If you’re alright with it, I’d like to see you. Six months has flown by. So. If you’d like to accompany me? I’d be honoured.  _

_ -Fandral.’  _

He closed the journal and left it on the pillow. “C’mon fatso,” he called out to Fenris. “Let’s take our bounty and head home, hm? There’s a hell of a storm blowing over.” 

The sky was rumbling and dark when they stepped back out in front of the cabin, and Fandral took a moment to pause and just breathe it in. Just a regular storm, not underlying rage or emotion. Just nature at her finest. The shadows swarmed around him, a warm and gentle embrace, and he grinned down at them. 

“I’m alright,” he said fondly. “You know that.” 

The first month had been a different kind of hell. Plagued with nightmares and unable to fall asleep, Fandral’s shadows and Fenris had taken it on themselves to comfort him however they could. He’d spent every night that month wrapped in the shadows like a cocoon, Fenris plastered along his chest underneath his tunics. They’d eased off, eventually, and Fandral was able to sleep normally again. 

But he had always been a tactile person, and the shadows were comforting. He missed Sif. Missed Eir and Kanil, Frigga and Odin. 

He missed Loki like a missing limb. 

And Thor… Loki spoke of him still. Of his hair, of his illness. Of his slowly changing sense of  _ self _ . But all Fandral could think of was a deep booming laugh as he tried to hold the bones of his face together in his hands. 

The first few drops of rain fell, and he opened his mouth to catch the next few on his tongue. He knew Loki never waited too long to go and read his letters, and he could kill a few hours finishing his latest sketch until Loki had replied. 

“Inside Fen!” he yelled as the storm broke overhead, lightning crashing and the thunder booming. He spared one last look at the forest and followed the wolf inside. He was glad he’d chosen Svartalfheim and not Norway in the end. It was easier here amongst those who used seidr. And those who were… like him. He had no interest in a partner, whether for an hour or a night, but it was nice to be greeted without the undercurrent of judgement and distaste. 

* * *

Loki was not a fan of Muspelheim. 

The ground was hard and broken and rough, the air was hot, and the wind blew constantly, a harsh, desert thing. There was little water to be found on the Realm, which made sense, since the main inhabitants of the planets were the fire giants, who rather had a bit of a disagreement with water when the two encountered one another. 

They tended to stay toward the south, however, where it was still warmer, for which Loki was grateful. He’d met a few fire giants before. They didn’t like him, which made liking them a difficult prospect. He found he preferred to just avoid them altogether. 

The mountains in the north of Muspelheim stuck up like the yellowed teeth of a dog’s lower jaw. As dry as the ground, they were a mottled conglomeration of browns and yellows, like sand and dry dirt. They were also made of little else but tiny sharp stones that bit through leather, ignored the protection of shoes, and generally made life entirely unpleasant. 

Loki was glad he didn’t have to climb them. Once in his lifetime was enough. More than. 

The mountains were the landmark he used to find the caves the merchant had mentioned. The same ones he heard about from the tribe on Alfheim, when he’d stopped to see if he could gather any more information. There had been nothing, sadly, the only information available that a hjartahundur had been spotted. It very likely could be nothing but rumor, but he wouldn’t take that chance. 

A couple centuries before, Thor, Loki, Sif, and Fandral had been hunting the animals that were destroying the stock of one of their trade partners on Alfheim. They had gone in expecting a simple pack of wolves and been taken by surprise when they uncovered instead a pack of hjartahundur - hearthounds. The things had come out of nowhere while the four of them had been chatting, Loki telling some story or other. They had moved so fast, he’d barely realized they were there before one was nearly upon him. Fandral, the idiot, had shoved him out of the way and the beast had all but ripped the thief’s guts out. 

They’d destroyed the pack, but fled back to Asgard moments later, with Fandral unconscious and drenched in blood.

The thief had fallen into a coma fighting off the venom from the creature’s bite. He had been so close to death that a karve had been built in preparation for him sailing to Valhalla. Loki had sworn then, as Fandral lay in the Healing Halls, that he would hunt down every hjartahundur in all the realms and wipe them from existence. 

Fandral had survived, of course. It had been… a gift from Yggdrasil, he thought. Or someone. He’d been certain his friend would be leaving him. Everyone had been. But Fandral had woken up, and Loki had gone hunting.

He’d tried to get Thor to go with him that first time, but his brother had brushed him off. He’d thought to ask Sif, but she’d seemed frightened to leave Fandral’s side. Instead, he’d gone alone. 

The hjartahundur were relatively rare creatures. According to his research, they had once been far more prevalent, traveling in large packs and marking massive territories. Alfheim, the heavily-forested area that was home to the elves, had been home to a large number of the creatures millennia ago. Their population had been decimated by some kind of disease, though, and the creature’s numbers had never increased after the decline, very likely due to the tribes that lived in the forests. 

He had never heard of the creatures living on either Midgard or Jotunheim, and considering their reptilian-like hides, he suspected they preferred warmer weather, which explained why one was on Muspelheim. There’d been a dozen on Vanaheim over the years, living in the dry areas to the south, away from the seas, and fifteen on Svartalfheim. He remembered the number because they had been living as a single pack of fifteen hjartahundur and he’d nearly been torn to shreds before he was able to flee them.

Fucking beasts. That had been a hunt that took him nearly two weeks of drawing each of them out with illusions and shapeshifts, and slaying them one by one with a dagger to the eye, or grabbing them in talons and flying as high as he could before they grew too heavy. He could always count on gravity when all else failed. Nothing survived being dropped from four hundred feet.

The hjartahundur were very similar to wolves in build. Quadrupeds, they didn’t have fur but thick, leathery hides made of tiny scales, like a lizard. Their tails were as long as the rest of their bodies, and powerful. And they were fast. Every toe ended in a claw like an eagle’s talon. They were perhaps the deadliest creature Loki had ever faced and he  _ hated _ them.

The caves beneath the mountains were large, looking like they may have originally been formed during one of the volcanic eruptions that frequented Muspelheim. The interior smelled revoltingly of both sulfur and rotting meat, but he ignored it as best he could. 

The wide path of the cave made him anxious, as his dim seidr light couldn’t demolish all of the shadows without him making it brighter, but he moved inward on silent feet, his dagger ready in his hand. 

Admittedly, he felt slightly better prepared for this beast than those previous. The anger still burned cold in his stomach every time he thought of them and what they had nearly taken from him, but he was not running on it as he had once been. Time, and admittedly, his thought that he had succeeded in his mission, had soothed the rage somewhat. He was far more protected now than he had been in the past, however. 

One of the courting gifts Fandral had for him was the dragonhide he had left behind when he went to Svartalfheim. Loki had been hesitant about doing anything with it at first, since the two of them were not courting, but after they began their correspondence and Loki settled into a life where Fandral was not  _ there _ but was still in touch, it became easier to deal with everything. The man had mentioned having armor crafted from the dragonhide, and since his continued attempts to pull the scales off the hide failed each and every time, he’d finally taken the thing to the dwarven blacksmith that lived on Asgard. He frightened Loki, but Fandral had always spoken of his skill and his integrity, and Loki trusted Fandral’s judgment. 

The dwarf had made Loki a set of armor. Black, covered in thick dark scales, it was a beautiful thing. He still wore his golden armor to functions that required him to stand as prince, but for hunting, he preferred the dragonhide. It moved easily, was not as heavy as he had expected, and reflected the light far less than the ostentatious gold of his princely armors.

Against a hjartahundur, it would be a benefit, and he could put his dagger through this one’s heart and hopefully see their species finally done. 

A low growl rose up through the cavern and Loki stilled, listening. The sound echoed, trembling against the walls, a terrible, threatening rumble. 

It could smell him. 

Loki waved his hand over himself, shielding his scent, and moved further into the cave. The growling had stopped but he kept his eyes open, sending the little seidr light further into the cave tunnel so he could see what was ahead. He watched the shadows press back away from the dim green light, the rough floor of the cave tunnel littered with the bones of some deer-like creature, and a pair of glittering eyes.

The light vanished like a winded candle flame. 

Loki stared at the spot where the light had been a moment ago, his breath caught in his throat. Surely that hadn’t been a set of eyes. He’d already be dead if it had been. Just… volcanic rock, perhaps. 

He called another light to his hand.

Nothing happened. 

Loki took a quiet, steadying breath, and tried to summon his seidr into his hand. 

Nothing. 

_ Yggdrasil,  _ he thought, pressing his seidr outward, reaching for the tree.

Nothing greeted him. No doorways, no creaking branches. It was, he realized with a kind of remembered unease, the same as the deep caves on Nidavellir. A place where his connection to Yggdrasil and his seidr were untouchable. A place Heimdall could not see. 

A low growl filled the tunnel, deep, angry, and close.

Loki’s fingers tightened around the handle of his dagger. He couldn’t see. And if he couldn’t see, he’d been shit in a fight he already couldn’t use seidr in. 

Loki’s fingers played lightly at his belt, fingering tiny little glass beads sewn into the leather. He pressed one hard between his thumb and forefinger and felt the thin glass shatter. Dust and ground herbs pooled into his palm and Loki twisted his hand back, listening. 

Hot breath brushed against his throat and he threw the handful of grains forward at the same instant he swung his blade. 

The metal skittered across the thing’s thick hide, but there was a flash of blue and then a shriek as fire erupted, bursting to life along the creature’s face. It lunged forward with a high-pitched shriek that made the world itself seem to shake. Pure instinct had him ducking down and throwing himself forward, and then he was running down the cave tunnel to get away from the thing as it threw itself into the cave wall, shrieking in pain and rage. 

He tried his seidr again, tried Yggdrasil, but he couldn’t call either. Loki broke another of the glass orbs on his belt and threw the mixture at the floor away from him, the blue fire erupting to life and lighting up the area he was in. 

A massive cavern. Perhaps once the interior of a volcano. Very likely, in fact, considering it was at the base of a mountain. 

The floor beneath him rumbled as the beast came rushing down the tunnel after him. Loki threw himself to the side in time to avoid the rushing beast, but barely. He felt its claws tears into his leg, felt warm blood begin to run down his skin, soaking into his pants, and cursed. 

He gripped the dagger tightly as he turned and finally got a good look at the creature. 

It was… massive. He was accustomed to hjartahundur only a little larger than wolves. This one was the size of Sleipnir. 

Leathery lips pulled back from layers of teeth, like a shark’s, and the creature’s muzzle wrinkled as the growling began again. Deep and low. 

Loki trembled, his guts cramping at the sight of the beast. It’s yellow eyes never left him, but seemed to be laughing. He was here, in the depths of a volcano on a Realm he never came to, faced against a creature three times the size he was expecting, unable to access his seidr.

Unable to move the way he moved in a fight, running along branches, shifting form. 

He thought about running for the entrance but knew he’d never make it to the tunnel. The thing was too fast. 

He thought about pissing himself, but if he was going to die, perhaps he’d hold off on the embarrassing things for people to add to his eulogy. 

Not that there would be anything left of him for people to find. 

Loki huffed a sudden laugh. “Well, come on, you bitch. I don’t have all day.” 

The shriek rattled his brain, his eyes unfocusing as he struggled to stay on his feet. He threw himself to the side, stabbing forward with his dagger, and heard the sound of fury and pain as his blade sank through skin. Hot blood splattered up his arm, splashing onto his throat, and Loki tore his dagger free. He was running for the cave tunnel before he had even thought about it, his heart hammering in his chest and his mind nearly gone to fear. 

And then the thing was there. No sound, just pain. Something slammed into his chest and he landed hard on his back, his head striking the stone floor and the world spinning. The whole weight of the universe pressed down on his chest, and there was a terrible scraping sound as claws tore at his armor. 

Long, eagle-like talons skittered over dragonhide, catching scales but unable to rip them free. Loki slashed at the thing’s legs with his daggers, tasting blood as he connected and doing his damnedest to hack through the thing’s femurs. Claws sliced into his side where the armor didn’t protect him, sinking deep into his flesh, and Loki screamed, grabbing the thing’s leg with one hand and burying his dagger into it over and over until it pulled free of his side with a sick squelching sound. It dropped to the ground, blood dripping from both ends of it, and Loki could hear a tinny squealing, like a far-off scream from miles and miles away. 

He realized everything was dark, nothing but blackness all around, and his hand slapped at his belt, slipping along the leather. Glass crushed beneath his fingers and sand spilled along his side. 

A bright burst of blue light and Loki rolled away, slamming his arm against the ground repeatedly to try and put out the flames. They wouldn’t go out, and he tore at his vambraces, his gloves, ripping them off his skin and flinging them away, flinging the fire away and

A blur of blackness, just a shadow and yellow, cruel eyes, and something sank into his shoulder. Loki shrieked, scrabbling at leathery skin with his bare hand and slamming his dagger over and over and over into the  _ thing _ on top of him. A thousand needles, fire, daggers, sank into his shoulder, tore into him, tearing at his throat. He screamed until his vocal chords gave out, punched his dagger over and over into the beast until he couldn’t pull it out again. The thing jerked away, and that tinny crying came again, far away and faint. There was blood and gore on his hands, he realized, as he reached up, pressing them against his throat. Blood and gore, and more blood gushing from the wound at his shoulder. He pressed his hands hard against it, trying to stop the bleeding. 

Blue fire flickered to his left, tossing shadows, and Loki scrabbled for purchase on the floor, searching for his blade.

It wasn’t on the floor, he realized, as he caught sight of the hjartahundur. The creature had collapsed feet away in a pile, one foreleg missing, its throat blackened from Greek fire, and Loki’s dagger buried hilt-deep in its left eye.

He giggled, a high, hysterical sound, and collapsed onto his back as the world spun around him, tilting and weaving and flickering with flames. 

“‘g’sil,” he grunted, choking. He turned his head and spit blood across the floor. He thought he could hear the World Tree’s branches shaking, her leaves calling out, but he couldn’t reach her here. “‘sil,” he wheezed, dropping his head to the floor. He stared at the hjartahundur. He wasn’t sure if his eyes fell shut or the fire went out, but the world around him went dark as blood continued to gush around his hand. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fandral's shadows let him know that Loki is in danger. Getting him back to Asgard is the easy part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for medical trauma and graphic imagery.

**CHAPTER TWO**

* * *

Fandral wasn’t sure when he’d dozed off, but he woke to the sound of the shadows around him _shrieking_ in agony and fear, and a chill he couldn’t shake settling over his skin and into his bones. Over and over, louder than the storm howling outside his cabin, they shrieked. 

**_LOST! GO NOW! WALKER! GO NOW!_ **

He barely had time to blink before they were pulling at his arms and legs and dragging him to the chest he kept his weapons in. “Who? Who is lost?” he asked, and pulled out his armour, lacing it quickly and tugging his vambraces and greaves on with a practised ease. “Who is lost?” 

The icy feeling that had settled in his stomach though answered him before they did. 

**_YOUR LOVE IS LOST._ **

Fandral tugged his cloak on over his shoulders and tied his hair back roughly. “Fen! To me!” The wolf came trotting over and sat immediately at his feet. Fandral slid his rapier into the sheath at his hip, tucked his daggers into the belt and let his shadows pull him away. 

He stepped out on Muspelheim, in the entryway of a dark cave. There was  _ something _ there. The air was putrid with the stench of rotted meat and sulfur, but over it all was  _ blood _ . 

Fresh blood.

“Fen,” he murmured. “Go down.” 

Fenris dropped to his belly and sniffed, his ears flicking back and forth as he listened and began to slowly shuffle forward. Fandral peered down into the darkness, but the shadows were still and silent. They were  _ just _ shadows. “On, Fen.” The pup didn’t make a noise to acknowledge him, but lifted his belly from the ground and began to move slowly forward. He got to the bottom, Fandral hot on his heels, before he came to an abrupt stop. Fenris threw his head back and howled like he’d never heard before. Every hair on his arms and on the back of his neck stood dead upright and Fandral’s skin  _ crawled _ at the sound. 

He clapped his hands together once and threw a ball of burning dark-blue seidr fire up into the air above them, and felt bile rise in his throat at the absolute carnage around his feet. Scattered bones from some kind of native animal, hunks of rotted flesh and hide tossed aside as the beast that had killed it fed. Old blood and gore, dried onto the rocks and walls, piles of shit and scratches in the dirt all over. 

And in the midst of it all, in a growing puddle of fresh blood was Loki, a single torn off limb beside his head and his hands clenching feebly at his shoulder. Fandral was frozen for a moment as he tried to make his body respond. Fenris nearly knocked him down as he barrelled over to the mountain of dead -  _ fucking  _ **_shit_ ** _ was that a heart-hound!? _ \- and tore Loki’s dagger free from it’s gaping eye socket. 

Fandral flung himself forward, skidding to a halt on his knees and shoved the trickster’s hands roughly out of the way. “Move, damnit!” he snapped. “You’re fucking bleedin’ out!” 

Loki kept trying to speak, to move his hands back, so Fandral tore his cloak off and bundled his hands up in it. “Be still!” He pushed out with his seidr and flooded the entire room with his dark-blue light. There was nothing else there, thankfully, just the dead heart-hound and Loki. 

Loki who was almost fucking dead himself. Fandral’s seidr pressed in alongside the trickster’s own, twisting through it and trying to bolster it. “C’mon Lo, don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare. You hear me, you no good rotten trickster! You are  _ not _ allowed to die!”

He pushed down hard on the sluggishly bleeding gash in his leg and pressed more seidr down over it like a tourniquet. Not perfect, but it’d stop it from bleeding more. The shoulder he couldn’t seem to make stop. Loki was still unconscious, his breaths rapid and shallow, his heartbeat thready, but he was holding on. Fandral got his hands  _ into _ the wound, shoving down through slippery veins and muscle to the artery he could feel faintly pulsing, and he pinched it viciously between his fingers. Loki came to with a gurgling scream of agony, and Fandral wrapped his spare arm tight around his shoulders to keep him still. 

“C’mon sugar! Lo, babe,  _ breathe! _ ” He pinched the artery harder when Loki’s squirming threatened to move his fingers, and tried to ignore the renewed shrieking it caused. “Sorry sweetheart,” he whispered and pressed his lips to Loki’s, flooding and overwhelming his mind with his seidr till he was unconscious again. Rough, but effective. 

“Fenris!” The wolf was at his side in an instant, and not for the first time, Fandral wondered if he had some inherent magic of his own. He had Loki’s dagger in his mouth like a prize, a torn and ruined eyeball, retinal veins still dangling from the end, impaled on it. “Disgusting dog.” 

The shadows rose up like an ocean wave, and Fandral was grateful Loki was unconscious. They had  _ never _ moved him so fast or so roughly before. Within a heartbeat, he was spilling out onto the floor of Eir’s halls. “HELP!” he screamed. “EIR!” 

The usually unflappable healer came tearing out of her office, took one look at Fandral sprawled on the floor with his fingers buried in Loki’s shoulder and immediately began to shout orders. He sat there, dazed and lost with Loki’s weak heartbeat thundering in his ears, his blood all over him. He watched with a kind of detached sensation as Loki’s blood spilled out over the white marble floor, spreading into the cracks, and filling the entirety of his vision with red. 

“Where’s it coming from?” he asked her, and she shook her head. She pressed her hands down onto his stomach, and Fandral watched as Loki’s entire body was flooded with a bright, burning white light. He looked like he was filled with starlight, like he was going to simply glow always. But then Eir’s panicked voice started filtering back in and he blinked hard to try and focus again. 

“ - - side! Now you fucking simpleton!” Fandral stared down at the armour she was ruthlessly stripping away and felt something hot and possessive settle in his chest when he realised it was made from  _ his _ courting gift. “OH NO FUCKING DON’T LITTLE BOY!” Fandral watched as she slammed her hand down on Loki’s chest, an enormous flare of her seidr flooding the room and blinding him for a moment. 

There was a hideous gash in Loki’s side, and Fandral’s stomach rolled when he realised he could see Loki’s guts - shredded and ruined and bleeding and - - 

“Fucking focus or I’ll snap your neck and be done with you!” Eir barked. “Incompetent twit!” 

The assistant - whose face was a rather unnatural shade of green - nodded, swallowed hard and stuck their entire fucking hand into Loki’s side, easy as you please. More seidr, a soft orange this time, flared up inside of Loki’s abdomen, and Fandral was mesmerized by the sight of what almost looked like embroidery stitches appearing and disappearing with each bright flash of magic under his skin. 

Eir’s white robes were red and dark with blood and gore, her arms and face spattered with it. Fandral’s legs had long since gone numb, and he was certain the only thing holding his fingers in place on Loki’s artery was his seidr. The assistant was slowly removing their hand from Loki’s side, blood the colour of a finely aged wine soaking their sleeve to the elbow, and staining their skin. But the blood flow was lessened, and a last press of a shaky hand over the external wound saw the skin slowly knitting back together. 

“Can you keep your hand still?” Eir asked him shortly, and Fandral nodded. “Good. Stand on three, and we’ll move him to your bed. One,” he braced his legs and straightened his spine, “Two,” tightened the grip of the seidr on his fingertips, “Three!” and pushed up with all his strength, his spare arm bracing Loki’s head in the crook of his elbow. 

Loki was white, like a corpse dragged from the water or the ice, the only splash of colour on his skin was the black blood of the hjartahundur and the brilliant red of his own. His lips were pale and tinged with blue, slack and slightly parted. Dark lashes swept over white cheeks, and his hair was a ruin of gore and viscera. His chest was rising and falling so slowly and Fandral had to lean down and rest his ear right above Loki’s lips as they walked him so slowly to the bed, just to hear and feel each gentle exhale and inhale. The pulse in the artery between his fingers was sluggish and slow, and he realised as he set Loki down carefully, that there was a very real possibility he may die. 

“How much of your seidr have you given him?” Eir asked, and Fandral shook his head to clear it and try to form the words to answer her. 

“Uh. Enough to stop the bleeding and knock him out,” he said softly. “I think… I think I might have tangled it up somewhere though.” 

“Good,” Eir’s voice was tense and he could see the fine tremors running through her. “‘Cause I’m drained. That idiot is too,” she gestured at the poor trembling assistant who was dry heaving by the bedside. “Listen carefully. You’re gonna stitch that artery closed with yours, you hear?” 

“Yes ma’am,” he answered quietly. “Just tell me what to do.” 

Eir’s voice was hoarse by the time she instructed him to slowly extract what was left of his seidr and move his fingers away. Yet another assistant took over then, pressing padding into place and winding bandages around the wound. 

Fandral’s entire body was shaking, and he could taste nothing but Loki’s blood in his mouth. He ached in places he didn’t know he had, and even Fenris was unnaturally still and quiet where he was curled up beneath Loki’s bed. More assistants were cleaning the massive pool of blood and dirt where he’d crashed in with Loki, and yet another still was cringing as he pulled the eyeball from the dagger with a truly disgusting squelching noise. Fandral blinked blearily at the shapes by the bed - and when had they arrived? -, the blurry forms of the All-Mother and All-Father slowly swimming into focus. Thor, his hair shorn short and dark, stood at their side and Sif by his other. 

“Not exactly the homecoming I imagined,” Fandral joked weakly. Sif’s lips twitched faintly, and Frigga sniffled. “He… I tried,” he said to her. “All-Mother? I  _ tried _ . Th-the beast was so big. He’d slain it by the time I…” Fandral blinked and when he opened his eyes again, he’d moved somehow to the bed beside Loki’s. 

“You passed out, you fucking asshole.” He turned his head and met Sif’s fierce stare. 

“Hey gorgeous,” he mumbled. “Get me back to Loki’s bed.” Fandral pushed himself up on shaking arms and tried to make his legs cooperate. 

“Fandral! Get back in that bed!” 

He shook his head, and managed to get his legs down and stood unsteadily. “Sorry All-Mother,” he murmured. “Gotta… I can’t…” 

An enormous arm wrapped itself around his waist, and Fandral found himself being mostly carried back to Loki’s bed, lifted up carefully and set down beside him. He very carefully managed to get his hand into the trickster’s, and tangled their fingers together. Loki’s closed over his own, and he felt such  _ relief _ at the action. 

“Go to sleep. I’ll watch over you both.” Fandral tried to focus, to thank Thor for helping him, but his eyes refused to cooperate. He blinked, and didn’t open them again. 

* * *

Sif stared down at the bed where Fandral and Loki were laying and had to wonder why it was always *this* bed she wondered if her friends would die in.    
  
Loki looked as though he were already dead, despite Eir’s work. He was whiter than Sif had ever seen him, and she had to watch very carefully to see the rise and fall of his chest. Too shallow. Too slow.    
  
One of Eir’s assistants was sitting in a chair in the corner, watching. Eir herself was taking a moment to change out of her blood soaked clothes. Sif wondered if she would lie down a moment, as well. The woman had been practically shaking from exhaustion and she didn’t know how else she would replenish her seidr but to rest.    
  
They hadn’t asked where Fandral had found him, what had happened. The thief was exhausted and Eir had said to let him rest, if he would. She had come in while he was stitching closed the massive wound in Loki shoulder (only a little higher and it might have been his throat entirely), under Eir’s careful instruction. She’d seen how badly he shook when he was finished.    
  
What had happened? What had done this? Fandral said Loki had slain the beast. What was Loki doing by himself against a creature that could do such a thing? Where had he been?   
  
She wished Loki would open his eyes. He looked terrible. He looked like he had died and Fandral was lying there holding the hand of a corpse. He looked...    
  
“Sif?” She startled, looking up to realize Thor was still there, standing in the middle of the room and looking pale and shaky. “What are you doing?”   
  
Sif went back to carefully unbuckling the vambrace around Loki’s right wrist, pulling it off with his glove and moving to his boots.    
  
“He’s covered in blood,” she said quietly. “I can’t move him, but... he’ll feel better if he’s clean.”   


She was careful not to disturb Fandral as she moved around the bed. She pulled Loki’s armor off, piece by piece, noting the missing glove and vambrace to deal with later. She piled the equipment in the corner, taking a moment to stare at the chest-plate of the armor Eir had removed. Fine, barely noticeable scratches across the thick dragon scales told the story of something trying to claw its way through. Something strong enough to leave marks in dragonhide. If Loki hadn’t been wearing it...    
  
Sif covered her mouth, dropping the armor into the pile and leaning against the wall as she swallowed bile and struggled not to be sick.    
  
She could feel herself trembling, could feel the sweat dripping down her forehead. If Loki hadn’t been wearing that armor, whatever had attacked him would have ripped clean through his ridiculous golden armor and turned his chest into soup. He’d be dead. Just dead.    
  
She dropped into a crouch and leaned forward, taking deep breaths.    
  
What was it? She wanted to know. She needed to know what had done this.    
  
It took a few minutes before she felt confident enough to stand up, and she moved back to Loki, tugging at what remained of his tunic. It was little more than scraps, shredded by the fight he had been in and Eir and Fandral both.    
  
She slit it open with her dagger and pulled it free of him, tossing it into the trash. Loki’s chest was as pale as his face, white and bloodless except for the dark red blood that seemed to be everywhere. She pressed her hand over his chest a moment, just feeling the rise and fall of his breaths, too shallow and slow. His lips were still tinged with blue, and she wished he would open his eyes. Open his eyes and tell them he was going to survive this.    
  
She wasn’t entirely certain he was going to.    
  
There was a basin in the room already and it was easy to fill it with warm water, to find a rag. She wrung out the cloth and began to carefully wipe the blood from Loki’s skin, carefully avoiding the bandages and stitches all over his body.    
  
At some point, Frigga came in with a fresh set of pants and Thor helped his mother slip them onto Loki, lifting his legs one by one and then pulling them up his hips.    
  
Loki never once made a sound. He was like a doll, lying there waiting for his limbs to be moved by others. Sif finished wiping up the blood from his skin and stared at his face.    
  
“Wake up,” she whispered, curling her arms around herself as she watched him. His face didn’t move. His eyes didn’t open. Was he dead? He looked dead.    
  
“Come sit down, Sif.” Frigga guided her over to a chair and Sif went because she wasn’t sure what else to do. She sat and looked back up at Loki, at Fandral.    
  
This was the second worst reason for her to see her friend again. The first time in six months, and it’s because of this. The only thing worse would be if he had come back for a karve burning.    
  
She thought, terribly, that there was a very real possibility he would be staying for one.    
  
She was aware of Thor and Frigga’s presence in the room, of the healer in the corner, but she couldn’t bring herself to focus her attention away from Loki. The slow rise and fall of his chest was so shallow, she needed to watch it, to be sure it continued. She had to watch him, to make sure he didn’t die.    


* * *

Sif was hyper-focused on Loki’s chest. Thor watched her eyes flick briefly up with his chest and then follow it back down again. She needed to go to bed. To eat or drink or  _ move _ . But then, he supposed, he was no better. 

Fandral had crashed into the healing halls almost twelve hours ago with Loki almost dead in his arms, and he, Eir and her most senior assistant had then spent the next four working to save him. 

A small groon from the bed caught the attention of everyone waiting in the room, and Thor had to fight down the rush of disappointment when he realised it was Fandral waking up and not Loki.

“Ymir’s saggy ballsack,” the thief groaned and Thor couldn’t help the small quirk of his lips at the familiar cuss. “Oh gross. What died in my mouth?” 

Sif gave a wet sounding laugh that was perilously close to a sob and fussed about with a glass before shoving at Fandral’s shoulder and helping him to sip from it. “You bastard,” she muttered fondly. “We were worried!” 

Frigga stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on Fandral’s ankle, and Thor noted sadly the way he seemed to shrink down into himself at the sight of her. He realised then that this would be the first time he had seen her since… since the Festival. 

“Fandral,” she said softly, and Thor saw the tiny flinch that the thief tried to hide. Had they truly treated him  _ so _ badly that he thought… 

_ Yes, _ he thought. Of course he’d think he was going to be hurt or punished. The last time he’d seen Thor and Frigga, had been in the immediate few seconds after he’d kissed Loki and then had his face broken. 

“I, um, my apologies, All-Mother,” Fandral stammered, and Thor felt his stomach sink. He’d been  _ learning _ so much over the last six months. Loki’s journal had been silent, but he’d been doing research of his own. Learning about the terrible things Bor had done in the name of  _ Asgard _ . He’d had to put his books down and walk away more than once, and the storms that had raged had been fierce. “P-please excuse me. I, uh, I will -” Fandral moved and tried to push himself up to sit up. “I’ll go back to my bed. I just… it was - I -” 

Thor blinked back a rush of tears. He had  _ never _ heard Fandral sound so… lost. Was he expecting to be punished for being in Loki’s bed? 

Thor fidgeted uncomfortably when he realised that was exactly what he would be expecting. He caught the brief, terrified look Fandral flicked at him and took a handful of steps backwards, away from the bed. 

“No excuse is needed,” Frigga was murmuring. “You will stay right where you are.” 

“Nevermind all that,” Eir butted in, and Thor grinned weakly at her. “Tell me what got him. Where did you find him?” 

Fandral cast one last look at Thor, and then shifted just a fraction closer to Loki. Thor noticed the way his hand gripped tighter to Loki’s slack one. 

“Muspelheim,” he said softly. “My shadows were screaming. I’ve never heard them like that before. They took Fen and I to a cave. Loki was - was... “ he tipped his head over to where the puddle had been on the floor. “A hjartahundur. The biggest one I have ever seen. And he took it down.” 

“Not before it got him good though,” Eir muttered. “Fucking  _ idiot _ boy! He knows they’re venomous!” 

“What now?” Fandral asked her quietly. “Will he - is there something we can do?” 

* * *

Eir sighed, moving back to Loki’s side and pressing her seidr against him. She was still weak, her own seidr diminished, but assessing wounds didn’t take much.    
  
Her mouth twisted sharply as she looked at the colors her seidr changed at his wounds. The one in his leg had sealed well, and Alvöru had done well sealed the wound in his side, though he’d used almost all of his seidr, idiot.    
  
The wound in his shoulder, though, was a problem.

“The venom of the hearthounds has no antivenin,” she said, pressing her seidr against the bite wound in his shoulder. Her white magic turned a putrid yellow of sickness and she grimaced. “It is why they are so very dangerous.” 

She brushed her seidr against Loki’s and was relieved to feel it press back. He was weak and he had lost so much blood she worried the thready beat of his heart wouldn’t be enough. His seidr, though, was strong. Stronger than it normally was when he came to her from a fight. 

She turned to look at Fandral. “You said you found him in a cave?” The thief nodded. “Were you able to use your seidr?”

He looked at her in confusion. “Yes? I called up flames a couple times, and I used my seidr to tie off his wounds.”

“But the hearthound was already dead.” Fandral nodded, watching her in confusion, but she turned back to Loki, pressing her seidr against his and feeding her own into it, giving him just a little more. He would need it. 

“A hearthound’s venom can only be fought off by the seidr of the one they’ve bitten. I can do nothing more than heal his physical wounds and keep him protected.” 

It had been the same way with Fandral years ago, but the four warriors had met the hearthounds they faced in the open. Fandral had used his seidr in the fight, and by the time he ended up in her halls, he was already weakened, and his seidr already closed off to her. That was the terrible part of it. For now, she could reach Loki’s seidr, but eventually the venom would move to prevent interference. 

It was only being in the hearthound’s caves that had saved Loki’s seidr from being as diminished as Fandral’s had been. The beasts had a natural defense against seidr. Something about the way they marked the territory of their caves, it made the place impenetrable to magic of any kind. The only way the ward could be destroyed was by killing the hearthounds that had formed it. 

It was a small consolation, knowing that Loki had destroyed the only hearthound in the cave. “Foolish boy.” She brushed sweat from his forehead. He was already warm. 

“Eir?” 

She took a bracing breath and looked up at them. Frigga’s eyes were haunted with the truth of what they were in store for. She had visited Fandral frequently during the days when he was lying in her halls, fighting the venom. Eir had watched her cry over the boy the queen considered yet another son when she had finally sent Loki back to his rooms. She hadn’t wanted him to watch Fandral die.

“He’s strong,” she said, and it was true. Loki was very strong, and he hadn’t used much of his seidr. “And his seidr is powerful.” She gave them a reassuring smile. “He can fight the venom off, don’t you worry.” 

She turned back to Loki, wondering how large the hearthound was. Fandral had only seen the ones they faced previously, but a larger hearthound meant an older hearthound. More powerful, with stronger venom. 

She pressed a little more of her seidr into Loki’s. He was strong. He’d be all right. He was just in for one hell of a fight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frigga is a mother to everyone, and Thor starts to dream.

**CHAPTER THREE**

* * *

Fandral didn’t take his eyes off Thor. 

He didn’t trust him not to grab him and move him from where he was tucked in beside Loki. 

He didn’t  _ trust _ Thor. Not anymore. He looked at the man he would have gladly died for and could hear nothing but the echoes of his laughter as he stood with his face and heart in pieces. 

The All-Mother was twisting her hands together in a motion he’d seen a million times in her son, and…  _ before _ , he wouldn’t have hesitated to take her hands in his and try to offer comfort. But not now. Not now she had seen the truth of him and seen how overly confident he’d been. How  _ stupid _ . 

Instead he carefully unthreaded his fingers from Loki’s hand, and shuffled himself out of the bed to stand on shaking legs. He brushed away Sif’s attempts to help him and walked to the washroom, closing the door quietly behind him. 

He wanted to leave. Wanted to stay. Wanted to go and kill every remaining hearthound in the realms. He was still covered in Loki’s blood. There was dirt and dried muck all over him. He stank of the cave and of dried blood and herbs. 

Fandral wanted to go and hold Loki and tell him to wake up because Fandral still loved him. 

That hadn’t changed at all.

Instead he sat quietly on the washroom floor wrapped in his shadows, and silently fell to pieces. 

* * *

Frigga turned to Sif, resting her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Do me a favor, dear. Go get a fresh set of clothes from Loki’s room. Something that will fit Fandral.”

The woman glanced at Loki, but nodded and left after a moment, slipping quietly from the room.    
  
Frigga touched her older’s son’s head, giving him a pained smile. She kissed his cheek. “Go sit with your brother.”   
  
She moved passed him to the washroom and opened the door quietly. The sounds of Fandral sobbing drifted out into the healing halls and she sighed, slipping into the room and closing the door quietly behind her.    
  
She moved to the tub first, turning the water on so it would begin to fill and pouring some oils into the water. The smell of coconut filled the room and she was grateful for Eir’s forethought.    
  
Frigga moved to Fandral then, sinking down next to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked up her, startled, with his face red and wet with tears. “All-Mother, I’m sorr—“   
  
“No more apologies, elskaða barnið mitt,” she murmured, and tugged him close, wrapping her arms around him. “You did not do anything that needs apologizing, save leaving without saying goodbye. We have missed you, sweet boy.”   


* * *

“I am sorry though,” he whispered into her shoulder. “I’m sorry for it all.” 

And he was. He was sorry for ruining his friendship with Loki. Sorry for ruining their Festival with his misguided attempt at beginning to court Loki. Sorry for running, for coming back and staying… 

“Sorry,” he mumbled again, and felt Frigga sigh beneath his cheek. “You tell me not to be… but I  _ am _ . For - for so many things.” Too many things to list. 

He pressed in closer, daring to take comfort while it was offered. This was the first time since he and Loki had parted ways six months ago he’d had more human contact then a handshake with a stranger. And Frigga - the All-Mother - she smelled and felt just like she always had. Warm, and floral and  _ home _ . 

But he couldn’t stay. They wouldn’t allow him to. 

They were grateful to him for bringing Loki home and helping Eir. But he wouldn’t be allowed to stay. He’d confessed to their prince in front of almost all of Asgard. Undermined his position and caused Loki to run, to chase him down and leave his family behind. 

He’d shown them all  _ what _ he really was. Dared to think that they would allow him to love Loki outloud. He’d been… 

“I was wrong,” he said softly and tried to pull away from her. To wipe his face and apologise again for leaving her covered in her sons dried blood. “I shouldn’t have - I was -” he stopped and shook his head. “There’s… too much to apologise for.” 

He sighed and hesitated a moment, before he pressed a featherlight kiss against her cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t find him sooner, All-Mother.” 

* * *

Frigga caught Fandral’s face in her hands before he could retreat. “Silly boy,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “When this is all over, I will ask you to come back to Asgard and live here with us.” She pressed a finger to his lips before he could speak. “I will ask later. Consider this a vision of what awaits you, and think on it. Whatever happens, I will ask.” 

  
She rose to her feet, pulled him up gently by his hands. “Come along, dear one. Into the bath with you.”   
  
“The... bath?”   
  
She smiled gently at him. “You are quite dirty. Sif is fetching you clean clothes. Now come.” She tugged him toward the bath. “In you go.”    
  
She turned away to give him a moment of privacy, moving to the cabinet to fetch a towel and a cloth. She heard the water shift behind her and the soft splashing as he climbed into the tub.    
  
She chanced a peek and, seeing him sitting in the tub, moved back over to him.    
  
He took the cloth and soap from her with a confused expression. Frigga settled behind him, grabbed the nearby pitcher already filled with warm water.    
  
“Close your eyes, darling,” she said, pouring the water gently over his hair.    
  
He made a sound of confused surprise, but Frigga merely hummed, pouring some shampoo into her hands and sliding her fingers into his hair. She spent a few moments simply scrubbing shampoo through his locks, making sure to get a good lather. He was drenched in blood.    
  
He had begun carefully washing himself and she ignored his self-consciousness, choosing instead to hum a quiet lullaby that Loki had always enjoyed. It wasn’t until she had rinsed his hair of the shampoo and was rubbing conditioner through his hair that she began to speak.    
  
“It is Odin and I who owe you an apology, Fandral. And many others of Asgard, including my other sons. I’m afraid our steps have been hindered in some ways by paths that must be taken, but that does not forgive us not making it easier to overhear some things that might have eased your mind.”    
  
He was stiffening beneath her touch, so she paused to place her hands on his shoulders. “Stay, darling. For Loki, if not for yourself.”   
  
She waited until it felt less like he was about to take off before she carefully poured water over his hair, rinsing out the conditioner.    
  
“Odin and I have no desire to live in Bor’s Asgard. We have been attempting to do away with it at every turn. The council has been giving us no end of trouble, however, as many of them have remained Bor’s men, despite him being dead for thousands of years. That changed recently.”   
  
What she could not say was that it had changed recently due to the incident at the Festival. She had certainly hoped for a different outcome, but they had failed Fandral and Loki both.    
  
The thief had been ridiculed constantly by Asgard’s populace as well as those he called friend, but he had had Eir’s supporting ear telling him that he was not wrong and to be brave.    
  
In contrast, Loki’s ability to hide had saved him the ridicule and the pain that Fandral had suffered in excess, but because he had confided in no one, he had no support and no one to tell him he was not wrong.    
  
They had come together at crossways, and Fandral had paid most dearly for it. But the council had been stripped of the last dregs of Bor’s influence because of Fandral’s bravery. And that had to count for something, even if things fell apart in the end.    
  
“Movement is slow is Asgard. The Aesir live too long to want to move quickly, but we are trying.” She set the pitcher aside and gripped Fandral’s chin, turning his head to look at her. She was unsurprised to see him crying.    
  
“You are _not_ wrong. You are not unwanted. If you wished to move back to Asgard today, you would be welcomed. Your room is as you left it, barring what may have been altered by Loki in the first few months you were gone.” She brushed her thumb over his cheek, wiping away tears. “You have been my hjartasonur since you came to us. I have known you loved Loki for centuries, and if you must hear the words, then here they are, sweet boy. I approve. I welcome you, for who and what you are, every bit of it. You are loved, and Asgard, whenever and for however long you may wish, is your home.”   


* * *

Thor was staring at the door to the washroom, guilt etched deep on his face. Odin sighed and walked over to him, clapping a hand gently on his shoulder. Thor looked up at him, and Odin was abruptly reminded of how  _ young _ his son still was. 

Grown in body, perhaps, but his heart and soul were still so very young. And now, he though sadly, they were a little damaged too. 

“He will be alright,” Odin said softly, and Thor nodded. 

“Aye. But, he will never trust me again. Never follow me into glorious battle or come to me for adventure.” Thor’s shoulders slumped, and he shook his head, turning to look back at Loki. “I ruined him. Ruined them  _ both _ . He was hurt… and I cheered for it. I was glad to see Loki shove him away, to punch him. It gladdened me only because I would have hated for Loki to have his life on his hands, that Fandral didn’t die.” He closed his eyes and turned his head to rest on Odin’s chest, right above his heartbeat, much as he had always done as a small child. 

Odin ran his hands over the short cropped hair, fingers tracing the faint outlines of the lightning Eir had shaved into the sides at Sif’s request. 

“I was glad he left,” Thor whispered. “Glad that he had taken his unnaturalness away from Asgard. From  _ Loki _ . It never occurred to me that Loki might have loved him too. That he may have wanted to be with him. I ruined that. I let those two old men teach me Bor’s Asgard.” He shook his head and pressed in harder to his father’s chest and Odin moved a hand to rest firmly on the back of his neck. 

“We all made mistakes in this, my son,” he said softly. “None of us are free from blame. It was just… unfortunate that poor Fandral was the one left to shoulder it all alone.” 

Thor shuddered out a sigh and turned his face to hide in Odin’s chest. “I’ve lost someone that… that I think was a friend, once.” 

Odin hummed. “Was he?” He put a gently finger under Thor’s chin and tipped his face up, the hand on his neck keeping him from looking away. “Thor, my boy, can you honestly tell me that you thought of Fandral as a friend? That when he called you  _ Skjöldur bróðir _ , that you didn’t clench your teeth or flinch at it? Because he is  _ samkynhneigð _ . Because he wields seidr, and daggers. A rapier and not a broadsword or an axe.” Thor was still and silent. 

“You are not the only one with blame to shoulder,” he murmured. “My boy, you acted only as you have been taught to. But we have all been blessed with witnessing the changes in yourself this past half year. And I am  _ so _ very proud of you.” 

He let Thor bury his face back in his chest, and turned slightly in the direction of the washroom when the door opened quietly. Frigga gave him a small smile, her arms full of clothing he recognised as Loki’s, and he felt as Sif brushed against his side. 

“May I, All-Father?” she asked quietly, and he nodded. Pressed a kiss to his sons head, and passed him into Sif’s arms. 

Odin moved to sit in the seat beside Loki’s head, and reached a hand out to brush the hair from his face. “Oh my boy,” he sighed. “What has this world done to you all.” 

* * *

Frigga moved back to the tub, setting Loki’s clothes on the bench beside it. Fandral had his face hidden from her and she let him hide, glad that he at least wasn’t running. 

“When you are dressed, come back out. You will lay with Loki again and hold his hand a while.” She brushed her fingers through his damp hair lightly. “Take your time, darling.”   
  
She slipped from the room, closing the door behind her and taking a moment to study the rest of her family. Sif was holding Thor, speaking quietly to him, and Odin had moved to sit by Loki.    
  
She stepped out into the hall, asking a passing maid to send for dinner for them. She had no idea how long it had been since Fandral had eaten, though he looked well. It was good to know Kanil’s baskets were well-received.    
  
She moved over to where Odin sat, sliding easily into his lap and brushing her fingers through Loki’s hair.    
  
There were many ways this could go, but the end results were evenly split between Loki living or dying. She hated seeing the futures where he fell for his, for what he suffered and what others suffered at his loss. But it was a very real possibility, and she was only glad that they were all here. If this was goodbye, then at least none would miss their chance to say it.    
  
She prayed it wasn’t, though. Norns and Yggdrasil and Ymir and all else, don’t let this be goodbye.    


* * *

Fandral took his time, scrubbing at his face to try and remove any lingering traces of his tears. He wouldn’t give Thor another thing to look down at him for. He dried quickly and smiled a little at the sight of the clothes waiting for him. He was taller than Loki by a good two inches, but Loki had always preferred softer clothes than his own, so it was easy enough to tug them down to cover his ankles and adjust the tunics collar to sit flat. 

He opened the washroom door, grateful for it’s silent hinges, and padded out on soundless feet to the bed. He hesitated though, at the sight of both Thor and Odin at Loki’s bedside. 

Was it still okay for him to just… get in? To lay down beside Loki and hold his hand? 

The All-Mother had said it was, but… 

_ “What, all the whores taken? No karlkyns hórar to warm your bed? We don’t do that here, Fandral, it’s wrong.”  _

Thor’s voice echoed as clearly as if he’d only just spoken the words then, and not nearly four centuries prior. 

Fandral looked at where Thor had his face pressed into Sif’s stomach, her hands in his hair. He saw the All-Mother perched on the All-Father’s lap, one of Loki’s hands in his and her hands in Loki’s hair. 

And he felt… like an intruder. Like he was witnessing something not meant for him to see. Fandral bit his lip. They hadn’t heard him walk out. He could still leave. Still run… 

His hand was pressed firmly over his nose and cheekbone as he backed away a little. His affection wouldn’t be tolerated, no matter what the All-Mother said. And he didn’t want to be broken apart again. 

* * *

“Get your ass in that bed right now,” Eir snapped, and watched Fandral leap like a startled cat into the air, spinning to look at her with wide, abused eyes. 

Eir raised an eyebrow at him, though, because his invisibility was officially gone.    
  
“Fandral,” Frigga said warmly, turning to look at him with a soft smile. “I forget how silently you can move.” She patted the bed. “Come along, darling.”    
  
Eir bit back a sigh at the way the boy cringed, looking like he was torn between doing what he was told and running as far and as fast as he could.    
  
She smacked him lightly on the ass. “None of that, or I’ll send Loki’s mule to hunt you down and bring you back. Into the bed. You can check Loki’s seidr levels for me. Tell me how they’re holding up.”

* * *

Fandral took a single step towards the bed, and then turned to look at the All-Mother. She was still smiling, her hand still gently patting the bed, and when he looked at Odin, he received an encouraging nod. He didn’t dare to look at Thor. One hint of his eyes on him or the smallest sound of his voice and he knew he would run.   


But Thor kept his face hidden in Sif’s stomach, so he took another step towards the bed, hand still firmly pressed over his nose and cheekbone. 

Slowly, slower then he had ever moved he was sure, Fandral climbed awkwardly up onto the bed and sat stiffly beside Loki. He ignored Eir’s exasperated huff. This would… take time. 

He set his hand gently over Loki’s chest, above the place where he knew his seidr lived and closed his eyes to concentrate. His own rose up easily to cover his hand and he breathed it out carefully to focus on Loki’s. Weak, less than it had been earlier, and all of it moving slowly to the bite in his shoulder. 

“Low,” he murmured and pressed his own in deeper, more so then he probably should have, trying to trace where it was draining from. “The bite. It’s low and the bite is… is draining it.” 

He pulled his own back with some difficulty, as Loki’s seemed reluctant to let him go. Green swirled around his dark-blue like it had always done when they worked magic together, and he sighed at the familiarity of it. It had been… a long, long time since they’d done this. 

He kept a small portion of his seidr focused over Loki’s shoulder, trying to trick the bite into draining that instead, and scrunched up awkwardly beside Loki, toes wriggling into the sheets as he hid a yawn in his knees. He wouldn’t give Thor anything more to use against him. Fandral pressed his hand harder over his face and kept his eyes fixed on his toes.

* * *

Frigga reached around Fandral and pressed her fingers against her son’s cheek. She felt Loki’s seidr resist hers, twisting away from it, and knew that this was the work of the venom. It would harden her son’s seidr against all other magic, preventing anyone from replenishing the seidr that had been lost. 

Fandral’s dark blue magic was still twisted about in Loki’s green, however, and she could easily see the two moving together, still accepting one another.    
  
She pressed a kiss to Fandral’s temple, feeding her seidr into his, and felt him guide it immediately into Loki on instinct.    
  
It didn’t pull his levels back up to full, but it helped bolster him a little, and she sighed as a couple of the possibilities of his future death dropped away from her mind’s eye.    
  
“Thank you,” she murmured softly in Fandral’s ear, sitting back against Odin and letting him wrap his arms around her.    
  
She heard the door open and the maids come in, trays of food in their hands, but she focused on Loki.    
  
His face had more color than it had previously, the blue tinge gone from his lips. He was still pale, but not bloodless, and when she pressed her fingers against his throat, his pulse was stronger than it had been.    
  
So his seidr has focused on healing that first, steadying his heart, and then moved toward the venom. That was a relief.    
  
Still, she worried. His seidr levels were already dropping again, and she could see Eir’s worried face out of the corner of her eye. It was dropping too quickly, and Loki’s face was damp with sweat from a growing fever. A dangerous thing for anyone, but even more dangerous for him.    
  
She itched to speak, to tell them to leave now, but she couldn’t.    
  
All things had to come in their own time. Even the terrible things.    


* * *

Thor didn’t turn his head to look at Fandral. He didn’t dare. Sif had tightened her hands against his head to keep him still. He knew the thief well enough to know that there was a very strong chance he would run if he caught Thor staring at him. 

He’d heard his mother patting at Loki’s bed, heard Eir telling him to get in there. A long, awkward pause and then the sounds of Fandral’s weight settling beside his brother. Thor’s first thought, when he heard the mans voice for the first time in half a year, was that he sounded… well. Like so much of the stress that had just  _ always _ been present in his voice was gone. Thor couldn’t help but feel guilty for it. 

To hear the ever present edge of  _ fear _ gone from the thief’s voice. Just how afraid had he constantly been here? 

Sif tugged lightly on his hair, and he tipped his head back to meet her eye. “Lunchtime,  _ rassgat _ ,” she whispered fondly, and Thor nodded. 

He saw, from the corner of his eye, the way that Fandral stiffened up like a statue as he moved away from Sif to collect his lunch tray. Thor felt Fandral’s eyes track his every move as he moved with deliberate movements to take the tray from the maid, and settle back in his seat. He also noted sadly, the way Fandral kept his hand firmly over his face. 

Where Loki’s fist had broken him physically. 

There was a constantly moving ball of dark-blue seidr pressing at Loki’s shoulder that he vaguely recognised as Fandral’s. But he didn’t speak, didn’t move suddenly. Thor sat, still as he could manage and let Sif perch on his knee with her own food. 

“Give him time,” she murmured, and he nodded back. 

He’d give Fandral the rest of his life if he wanted it. Thor didn’t deserve to call him friend. 

* * *

It was Odin’s sigh in her ear, a sound of resignation and disappointment, that ended their time together in the healing halls. 

Frigga slipped from where she had been half-dozing on his lap, smiling at him as he squeezed her fingers gently. She moved around the chair and made her way quietly over to Thor.    
  
He wasn’t asleep, as she had thought, merely studying the floor intently. Frigga cupped his face and pressed a kiss to his head.    
  
“I think it’s time for bed.”    
  
Sif _was_ asleep, curled up on a cot in the corner with her fists tucked close to her chest. She looked tired, Frigga saw, and wondered how much sleep the girl was really getting. She’d been spreading her time lately between Thor and Loki, because though Loki seemed to have softened a little toward his brother, he still spent very little time with him. It was beginning to weigh on her eldest son, and now this.    
  
“Sif hasn’t been sleeping well, I think. Why don’t you make sure she gets to bed?”    
  
Thor moved to look toward his brother but stopped, frowning. Frigga ran her fingers along the close crop of his hair. “Your brother will still be here in the morning. I promise.”   
  
He nodded with a quiet sigh and she stepped away, letting him rise and smiling gently as he moved over to Sif. He poked the other woman awake, Sif grunting and cursing at him and mornings in turn, before letting herself be tugged out of the cot and led toward the door, leaning heavily against Thor.    
  
She turned back to where Loki and Fandral were, watching her husband pat the thief on the shoulder before turning and walking out of the room.    
  
Frigga moved over to the bed, trailing her fingers through Fandral’s hair. “It’s late,” she said, “and we should all be well-rested for the morning.”    
  
He was watching her quietly, clever golden eyes that always seemed to know more than they said. She couldn’t have answered him if he asked, but he didn’t, just moved to get out of the bed.    
  
Frigga pressed a light hand against his chest. “You’re welcome to stay here. You may return to your rooms if you want to, but your seidr is wrapped rather firmly around Loki’s and it would be easier for you both if you just lay down.”   
  
Yggdrasil creaked her branches in warning and Frigga bit her tongue to stop herself saying more. Instead she bent down a pressed a kiss to Loki’s warm cheek, and then one to Fandral’s.    
  
“Sleep well, my sons,” she murmured, before slipping out of the room and leaving the two of them alone. Fandral would make clearer decisions without an audience, and she’d interfered more than she should have. Still, it was worth it.    
  
She moved down the hall at a sedate pace and made her way to her rooms.    
  
They would all need to be well-rested.

* * *

The All-Mother was hiding something. She kind of always was, but this seemed to be weighing both on her and her words.   


He’d tried to move, to climb out of Loki’s bed, and even  _ he _ had heard a sound that could only have been Yggdrasil. She left the room and closed the door, and Fandral blinked at the suddenly empty room. 

He looked down at Loki, at the pale face and tired shadows under his eyes and then back at the door. He didn’t have the excuse of exhaustion addling his mind this time as to why he would stay in Loki’s bed. But… he couldn’t leave Loki. 

He settled himself down beside him and very carefully and gently moved Loki so his head was resting over Fandral’s heartbeat. 

“Match that,” he murmured and pressed a kiss to his cheek, grimacing at the heat gathering there. “C’mon babe. Don’t… don’t try and leave me, okay? I’ll stay for you. Y-you stay for me.” He let his head rest on the pillows and tightened his arms around his trickster. “I still love you, Loki,” he whispered. “So don’t leave.” 

* * *

Sif stumbled out of her pants, ignoring the fact that Thor was in the room, and threw herself face-down on the bed. Fuck, she was tired. 

She tugged on she shirt, fighting to pull it off without having to lift her face from its very comfortable place in the pillow. She tugged her arms free and sighed, finally rolling over and lifting her head enough to fling the shirt across the room.    
  
“Get over here,” she grumbled, kicking the blankets loose until she could pull them up over her.    
  
“I have my own room,” Thor said. He had that quiet, sad sound in his voice, though. The one that sounded like a small puppy left out in the rain.    
  
Sif squinted her eyes open and glared at him. “I will kick your ass,” she warned, watching his lips quirk in humor at the familiar, and honest, threat. “Get in this bed. My toes are cold.” She wiggles said toes and eyes his boots with murderous intent. Thor ran warm, because of his storms. The lightning always trembled just beneath his skin, vibrating and making it seem like he was a burning hearthfire.    
  
Perfect for when you were camping and accidentally rolled into his space. Thor had long since accepted her habit of plastering herself to him during hunts. They both knew she had absolutely no interest in him, romantically or physically, and that she could kick his ass all the way to Midgard if he ever got handsy.    
  
“Bed. Warmth.” She pressed her head into her pillows, sighing in pleasure. Ymir’s tits, she was tired. “Sleep, Thor,” she mumbled. “C’mon.”

* * *

Thor dropped his clothes and boots into a pile on the floor and crawled naked into the bed beside Sif. She was a cool against his chest and he sighed in exhaustion as she pressed up against him.   


“Soft and warm,” he mumbled, and she laughed quietly. 

“I am now. Shh. Now go to sleep.” 

Thor wanted to argue with her, to protest and stay awake simply to spite her, but his eyelids were so heavy and she was  _ so  _ warm and soft… 

He dreamed. 

A man with a bright blue star in his heart and a tiny child in his arms, both always half-shrouded in the shadows, called out to him for help. Black tendrils of smoke crawled over them and pulled them down and Thor woke up still reaching for them. The blankets were tangled around his hips, Sif fast asleep still, her cheek resting in the crook of his neck, breasts pressed against his chest and her legs entwined with his. 

Safe. Warm. Family. 

**_Soon enough, Godling._ ** He looked around at the sound of the pages riffling, though he knew the journal was in his own room.  **_In the morning. We will guard your dreams. We guard all._ **

Thor blinked and nodded, settling himself back down and tugging Sif closer again. He buried his nose in her dark hair and closed his eyes. Sleep came easily, and he didn’t dream. 

* * *

Eir slept in short bursts - cat naps, really. She woke after a little over an hour and found herself wandering her healing halls, checking on things.    
  
Her assistant were asleep in her office, sprawled out on the spare cot there. Stubborn fool, and so loyal.    
  
She slept for another hour or so, before waking again to make her way around. Loki was her only patient at the moment, and she stood in the doorway of his room, watching the way Fandral held the trickster to him.    
  
She mixed salves together when sleep wouldn’t come, rolled bandages or fixed up her kits.    
  
She slept a little more, and woke to find herself back in the room where Loki and Fandral were.    
  
The trickster’s heartbeat was a steadier thing than it had been, thank the Norns. His cheeks were flushed, however, and when she pressed her hand to his head, she found his skin hot to the touch.    
  
A brush of her seidr showed his levels had dropped again, and they were focused entirely on the bite mark, pressing hard against it. The wound was blazing with heat, and she could see how his seidr rolled against it, biting, fighting hard.    
  
She ran her seidr over him gently, cooling his skin as best she could. She felt a tendril of his seidr reach out, curious, and Fandral’s, testing for danger. She hushed them both and nudged them back into sleep.    
  
She stared at the two young men for a long time, watching them. They were good boys. She truly hoped this didn’t break them apart.    
  
She slipped back to her room across from her office and laid down again. Another hour and a half of sleep and she was awake again. The sun was peeking over the horizon and she could hear her assistant moving around, preparing for the day.    
  
Eir sighed and climbed out of bed.    


* * *

“You are pacing,” Odin muttered into his pillow. Had they always been so soft? It was some kind of sorcery, surely, the way they only ever seemed so wonderfully soft and cosy when he wasn’t permitted to stay in bed and laze about on top of them. He rolled over and peered out of the warm bundle of blankets at his wife, now on her fifth lap of their bedroom. “Frigga, my love. You are  _ pacing _ .” 

“Astute observation, husband,” she snapped and Odin sighed. One hand rubbing at the aching empty socket of his left eye and the other shoving blankets aside, the All-Father pushed himself up into a seated position and fumbled for his eyepatch. The light gave him such a headache on the left side in the morning. 

“Darling one, come here,” he said softly. “Tell me what ails you that I might try and ease it.” 

Frigga turned to him, and he caught sight of the still damp tear tracks on her cheeks and but down another sigh. “Have you Seen something?” She nodded but stayed where she had stopped by their washroom door. “I understand,” he murmured. “Why do we not dress then, hm? We will breakfast with our sons and daughter, and let this wretched day begin.” 

He got up slowly, and moved to stand at her side. Her hand, shaking but warm, slid into his and she squeezed it tight. A silent plea for support. “I’m here, Frigga,” he whispered and pressed a kiss to her cheek, breathing her in and closing his eyes as she leaned her head on his shoulder with a sob. “It will all be well. You’ll see.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sif and Thor get a good look at the hearthound that took Loki down. Sif and Fandral are sent on a mission.

She was dreaming of a hunting trip.    
  
She knew she was dreaming because there was a kind of eerie silence that hung over everything like a fog. She could see Fandral there, laughing, but there was no sound to his hilarity.   
  
Thor was cleaning Mjölnir with a rag, his eyes studying the sky, and his own lips moving as he spoke words she couldn’t hear.    
  
Loki was in the middle of a story, his arms splayed wide, bright grin on his face as he spoke.   
  
Their movements were slow. Not lazy, but dragged out, moving as though through a thick syrup, and there was no sound.    
  
There was a smell, though. A sharp, sick-sweet rotting smell that had Sif cringing away. She clapped a hand over her face and the movement seemed to break something. One by one, her three friends went completely still, frozen mid-joy and joke and sky-studying.    
  
Sif watched them with something nervous eating at her insides, and she felt her skin break out in a cold sweat when Fandral’s eyes flicked to hers. Then Loki’s. Then Thor’s.    
  
She rose from where she had been sitting, backing away from the strange visage of her friends. Their bodies stayed in place, but their eyes followed her.    
  
She moved further from the fire, hoping their eyes would find something else to watch, or they would go back to as they had been. She found herself wandering into a dark tunnel, the shadows clinging to everything, and the smell of rotting meat growing stronger still.    
  
_**Here. It is here.** _   
  
She flinched from the voice, turning around to find the source. There was nothing there but darkness. The fire and her friends were gone. Only blackness and the continuing tunnel.    
****  
_Here. Come look._   
  
There was something dark in the voice, cold, but not... hurtful. It seemed almost gentle, almost soft. Sif thought she could hear branches creaking somewhere in the distance, and she found herself moving further down the tunnel, down and down.    
  
Colors seem to have left her sight. Only the black of shadows, the grey of what she was permitted to see, and red. Everywhere red. The floor was soaked in blood.    
  
Grey bones were piled into towers that stretched higher than her head, empty eye sockets staring out of a million skulls. Sif moved past them, trying to ignore the sense of being watched by every one.    
  
She moved through the labyrinth of blood and bones, watching the shadows play and dance.    
  
****_It is here._  
  
She stumbled to a stop, staring as the shadows pulled back and she saw her friends again. Loki, Thor, and Fandral, sprawled across the floor, their stomachs ripped open and their guts spilling across the floor. Throats nothing but gaping wounds spilling blood. Eyes sightless and staring.    
  
Sif cried out at the sight of them, and she knew it was nothing but a dream. She knew that, but her friends!    
  
****_You must come here!_  
  
She looked up, searching for the voice. Instead, she found eyes staring back at her. A hundred yellow eyes, a hundred open, snarling mouths. The hjartahundur growled all at once, the sound like thunder and the shaking of the earth.    
  
**_You must come! **N** ow!_ **   
  
Sif sat up in bed, her face drenched in sweat and her whole body shaking. Her room was bathed in light from the rising sun, and Thor was a warm, alive presence next to her.    
  
It had only been a dream.    
  
__**You must come now.** The shadows under her bureau and in the dark washroom seemed to echo with the whispered words.    
  
Sif shuddered. It had only been a dream.    
  
Hadn’t it?

* * *

Thor woke when Sif sat up gasping and shuddering, the sound of pages turning in his ears. She was shaking so hard the entire bed was shaking with her, and he reached out to pull her back down. She came easily, her ear pressed over his heart and he rubbed a gentle hand up and down her spine. 

“Breathe, Sif,” he murmured softly. “That is all. Deeply and slowly. It was only a dream, sweetheart. Only a dream.” 

He held her close, whispered soothing nonsense at her until she had stopped shuddering and trembling, and her heart had slowed back down to a normal rhythm. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Sif shook her head, just once, and whispered, “Not yet.” 

Thor kissed her on the cheek and slipped from her bed. “I will run your bath,” he said firmly. “You will wash, dress and I will meet you back here to take you to breakfast with Loki and Fandral. He may not want to see  _ me _ , but your presence will give him comfort.” 

He didn’t bother to wait for her to respond, just tugged the sheets around her shoulders and over her breasts, ran his fingers through her hair as he passed and plodded naked to her washroom. While the tub was filling he took a moment to relieve himself and wash his face, scrubbing at his eyes to try and remove the feeling of  _ grit _ caught in them. Thor rummaged about in Sif’s toiletry collection and added her favourite scents to the bath before he shut the water off. 

She was easy enough for him to just scoop up off the bed, sheets trailing along, and he set her down in the tub with one flowing movement. “There you go,” he smiled. “Wash up. I will come and collect you soon.” 

Thor tugged his pants back on, but didn’t bother lacing them, and threw his tunic over his shoulder. As he pushed open the door to his own rooms a few moments later, he was unsurprised to see Loki’s journal had moved, and was sitting open to an entry. 

_ ‘I have heard a rumor about another pack of hjartahundur. The source isn’t particularly reputable, but I have sworn to slay them all, so I will investigate. If nothing comes of it, well, I enjoy Alfheim’s forests in summer, and I may find some merchants willing to buy what I have looted from my sources.  _

_ I shall have to send a message to Aunt Freyja in regards to the bandits that took up the old ruins. It seems the guards that were placed here fell some months ago and their group moved in.  _

_ They have been dealt with, though, and I have a fancy new dagger. I might have it priced by a merchant and see if there’s anything known about it. It would not be wise for even a prince to be carrying around a weapon with a bloody history.  _

_ But first, Alfheim.’  _

Had Loki been serious, he wondered, about hunting them all down? 

A chill ran down Thor’s spine. Loki was… was chewed all to fuck in the healing halls. Was this why? 

He threw his clean clothes on in a rush, grabbed the journal from where it sat, and hurried back out the door, still barefoot and messy-headed. 

* * *

Sif washed herself quickly, scrubbing off the fear-sweat from sleep and dunking her head forward into the water to scrub at her hair and her face.    
  
She wiped her streaming eyes when she came up, feeling ridiculous. It had only been a dream. And she’d known she was dreaming, too.    
  
Just a nightmare brought on by the state of things, Loki so badly hurt and her brothers all at odds with one another, Fandral finally back for all the wrong reasons.    
  
Asshole hadn’t even taken a horse with him. Or all of his things. Jerk.    
  
She climbed from the tub, wringing water from her hair. She dried off quickly, pulling a pair of loose, comfortable pants from her wardrobe and yanking on the first shirt she found. She was pulling on her boots when Thor walked back through the door.    
  
“Hey,” she said, ducking her head back down to hide the red of her eyes. Stupid nightmares.    


She finished pulling on her boots and leaned back. “You all right, Thor?”

* * *

He shook his head, just once. “We need to see my mother,” he said shortly. “Are you ready?” 

Sif gave him an odd look and Thor sighed, rubbing his hands down his face. Her eyes were still red-rimmed and she looked tired. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I have… I think I know what’s happened to Loki.” 

“The hearthound?” she asked him and let Thor tug her to her feet. “We know that…” 

He shook his head, and tucked her in close to his side under his arm and led her from the room. “I mean why he was hunting it in the first place.” 

_ Fandral _ . It all came back to the thief in some way. 

Thor sighed again, and picked up his pace. “Come on, Sif,” he said. “Lets go and see if maybe Loki is awake.” 

Sif hummed and nodded, but they walked the rest of the way in silence. Thor couldn’t seem to shake the words from Loki’s journal from his mind. What had his brother been  _ doing? _ Had he been serious with his pledge to hunt all the beasts from the Realms? 

He could still remember the way Loki had asked him, could still see the determined set to his chin and mouth and he’d just… brushed it off as some new oddity of his brothers. 

But Loki… Loki had clearly been busy. And the more Thor thought on it as they walked, the more he realised he’d been very blind. Everytime there was even a hint on any of the planets that there had been a sighting or attack, Loki had vanished. Once for as long as a week, if he remembered correctly. Thor closed his eyes for a moment, silently begging for the strength to  _ not _ punch his unconscious baby brother for being so  _ fucking _ reckless. 

“Thor?” He opened his eyes and blinked down at Sif. “He’s been… hunting them, hasn’t he?” 

He groaned. “I think so. I’ve been… there’s been clues,” he said after a moment. “Obvious things that I can only see now that my eyes are fucking open and rid of Bor’s blinkers.” 

He knew he still had a lot to learn, a lot of old prejudices to work through and understand, but he was trying. Hard enough that even visitors from Alfheim had noticed and commented to his parents about his newfound maturity and understanding. 

The doors to the Healers Halls were open, and Thor took a deep breath as they walked in. He smiled and nodded at Eir and moved to his brother’s bed. Loki was still unconscious, but his skin now was damp with sweat. Thor could feel the heat radiating from him when he set a hand just above Loki’s chest. Loki’s hand was being gripped tightly by Fandral who was stubbornly refusing to look in Thor’s direction. 

“Thank you,” Thor said softly, and settled himself into the chair his father had sat in the night before. “Thank you for staying through the night with him. Even as he is-” Thor nodded at Loki’s prone figure “- your presence would have brought him comfort, Fandral.” 

The thief didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, but Thor could have sworn he saw a tiny bit of the tension bleed out of his shoulders. 

* * *

Frigga knew that Loki would not be awake when they entered the room, but she was still disappointed to see him unconscious.    
  
She didn’t remark on Thor sitting next to the bed, well within touching distance of the thief. And Fandral, while tense, was not pulling away from him.    
  
Progress, perhaps. It was good to see.    
  
“Good morning,” Odin said to them, as Frigga slipped from his arms and moved over to Loki’s side. He was hot to the touch and sweating, and she smoothed her hand over his forehead carefully.    
  
“My poor little boy.” She pressed her seidr against him, trying to push the fever down a little. Her skills at healing weren’t as good as Eir’s, but she was no slouch. She felt the fire recede somewhat.    
  
Her eyes moved to where her eldest son was sitting. Thor looked distinctly uncomfortable, his mouth twisted in worry, and she knew why, of course. She had wished a thousand times that Loki would not hide so much from them. She hoped they would get to a point where he would come to them in the future. That there would be a future.    
  
She slid her fingers into Fandral’s hand, giving him a small smile as she squeezed his hand gently. She kept hold of it as she turned back to Thor. “You have something you learned, Thor?”

* * *

Fandral stared in bewilderment at the hand in his. He glanced up at the All-Mother, but she was watching Thor. He turned his own gaze back to Loki, focused back on trying to bolster his seidr with his own. 

It was helping less and less each time, but he refused to give it up. 

“I have learned why Loki was hurt,” Thor said quietly, and Fandral couldn’t help the way his eyes moved to stare at Thor. Frigga’s hand squeezed his, and he dared to let his thumb brush over her knuckles in gratitude. “He has been… hunting the hearthounds.” Thor’s mouth turned down into a frown and he sighed. “I think that he was overcome by this one because of the sheer size of the thing. Fandral-” Thor nodded at him “- said that it’s remains were massive. But if Loki has indeed been hunting them down, then he must have been caught off guard for some reason. I just… can’t think of  _ why _ .” 

Fandral cleared his throat softly. “There was uh, quite a lot of mess,” he said delicately. The last thing he wanted to do was to upset the All-Mother. “But, it looked like he was more… overwhelmed, then caught off guard. There were wounds all over it,” he licked his lips and looked back down at Loki. Pushed a little more of his seidr and tried not to panic when Loki’s own barely nudged him back. “There were deep claw marks in the stone and dirt, like it had been truly fighting back. And there were signs that he was… stuck, I believe. Yggdrasil couldn’t reach him, and his seidr seemed lost. There was glass from his little spell spheres. I think that he was just trapped and caught unawares with the sheer size of the thing. Loki fights by utilising Yggdrasil and his magic. With those cut off from him? Its as good as taking a limb.” 

Fandral sat back and sighed. That was easily the most he’d spoken out loud since he left Asgard. It made sense though. If Loki had truly been hunting the bastards down, he’d be accustomed to how they moved and fought. And their usual size. This monster had been old and enormous, hidden away in one of the few places Yggdrasil couldn’t reach, but his shadows thankfully could. 

* * *

“Hearthound dens block seidr-use.” Eir came into the room, a basin of water in her hands and a couple cloths draped over her arm. “It’s why I asked if you were able to access yours when you found him. If you couldn’t, if would have meant he missed one.” 

“Cooling him?” Frigga asked, as Eir set the basin down on the table next to the bed. 

“Aye. Boy’s too hot.” Eir sent Frigga a look, but she only nodded. She knew how dangerous it was for Loki to spike a high fever. Fandral had suffered one, as well, but he wasn’t Jotun. Her son might not be aware of his heritage yet, but that did not mean that he could not be injured by it, and it was dangerous for a Jotun to spike a high fever. Even when they were not in their Nature forms, they were still linked to the climate of their planet.

Frigga pressed a kiss to Fandral’s hands and let him go, giving him a gentle smile. Her hand was almost immediately replaced by the wet cloth that Eir dropped into his hands. 

“Put that on the back of his neck,” the healer said, dipping another cloth into the cold water and wringing it out. She spread it over his bare chest while Frigga handed another to Fandral. The boy took it and immediately began brushing the cool cloth over Loki’s reddened cheeks and sweeping the sweat from his forehead. 

She heard the creaking of branches and knew that Yggdrasil was close. This was one thing the World Tree dared not interfere with, however. They stood at a crossroads of her branches and it was up to them to decide with path they took. They couldn’t sway them, however fond Yggdrasil was of Loki.

“I’ll be sticking him in an ice bath next,” Eir muttered angrily. “Idiot boy.” Her shoulders sagged slightly and she glanced at Frigga. “I had wondered where he picked up some of the wounds he came back from. There’s a particularly nasty scar on his back that I’d guess now is from one of those damn hearthounds. Stupid boy should  _ not _ have been hunting them.” 

“I suspect that’s why he didn’t say anything. He knew you would have stopped him.” 

“What I should have done is tied him to the bed until he told me.” Eir shook her head and dropped her voice. “He’s not accepting my seidr anymore.” Frigga nodded. Loki had stopped accepting hers the night before. 

There was a quiet gasp and Frigga looked over at Sif to see the young woman staring beyond them. Frigga turned to follow her gaze. There was a small cabinet where Eir kept some spare bandages and medicines for use in this room, but Frigga could see nothing there that was amiss. 

She turned back to Sif. “Darling, what is it?”

**_You must come nooow…_ **

The words were barely a whisper. If she hadn’t been listening for some sort of answer, she wouldn’t have heard them at all. Whispers in a low, cold voice, and an echoing growl that moved behind them. 

Sif hunched in on herself and started to  _ cry,  _ a reaction she so rarely saw from the woman. Thor curled his arm around her and pulled the woman close, letting Sif bury her face in his chest and petting the back of her head. 

“Nightmare,” he said quietly in explanation. Frigga sighed. Poor girl. She certainly wouldn’t be the first one to be haunted in the daylight by a terrible dream. Odin had quite a few. Battle dreams, memories from the war and from the years before, which were a war of their own kind. Thor seemed to have things well in hand, though, so didn’t interfere. 

**_Must come now…_ **

Although… 

Frigga turned back toward the cabinet. She could see nothing, but that whisper was more than just her imagination.  _ You must come now.  _ Come where? And to whom?

* * *

**_Must come now…_ **

Fandral sighed and gave a tiny nod. When he looked up though, he couldn’t help the confused frown he could feel. Sif was… crying? And even Frigga looked a little lost. 

And she was staring where he could see some of the older shadows twisting and curling beneath the cabinet. 

**_You must come now!_ **

Fandral set his cloth down and shifted carefully off the bed to pad over to the cabinet. He held a hand out, and as they always did, the shadows moved to twine about his arm and croon in his ear. Sif had her face buried in Thor’s chest, her shoulders shaking faintly. And he saw, everytime that the shadow whispered to him, she flinched. 

That was… new.

“Sif,” he said softly. “Can you hear them?” He walked over to stand closer to her, but left a distance the perfect length of Thor’s arm between them. “They won’t hurt you. This one is old. They’re powerful, more so than any others. It might be why you can hear it. What is it saying?” 

“Come now,” she whispered. “It’s telling me to come now.” 

The shadow pulsed against his skin and Fandral sighed at it. “It’s not nice to spook people,” he scolded it quietly. 

* * *

Sif sniffled and looked over at Fandral. There was a… there was a shadow twined around his skin where there shouldn’t have been a shadow, and it moved like a snake, curling and uncurling. But he didn’t look bothered by it asides from quietly scolding it.

“It was in my dream, whispering.” She shuddered, looking away from the shadows where they curled so  _ wrong _ around Fandral’s hands. She knew she’d seen Fandral’s shadows before. When he leapt into them during battle, she would get the briefest glimpse of them before they and Fandral both disappeared. 

But this… this was like seeing the shadow of a twining snake without the snake’s presence. Or the shadows cast by clouds. Except these were cast by nothing. They simply exited where they  _ shouldn’t. _

“Sif, what did you dream?” 

The All-Mother’s voice was kind, but Sif still flinched at the memory of the dream. She turned and pressed her face back into Thor’s chest, drawing in a shuddering breath. 

“We were on a hunting trip, the four of us. I don’t know where.” She curled her arms around Thor’s waist, sinking her fingers into his tunic. “There was… I knew I was dreaming, because things were moving too slowly. You were all caught, like you were were trying to move in molasses. Everything was off, and then… you were staring at me, but it wasn’t…  _ you.” _

She still remembered that part clearly. Her mind wouldn’t dim the memory of the way their bodies had frozen, but their eyes had still moved, tracking her. Human eyes in a doll’s face, but with something  _ else _ behind it. 

“And there was a cave. A long tunnel. I could them whispering, telling me to come and look, that something was there.” She trembled. “And it was you, Fandral. You and Thor and Loki, dead and r-ripped apart. And then the hearthounds. So many of them, standing there and growling, and the shadows telling me to come now.” She shook her head, sobbing. “They keeping saying I must come. Why?” 

* * *

**_You must go!_ **   


Fandral sighed and shook his head. “They’re only trying to help, Sif,” he said softly. “They worry because they like you. And they like Loki.” 

And once upon a time, they might have liked Thor. He watched the thunder god’s hands as they comforted Sif and felt an irrational pang of jealousy. Why was it so easy for him to care for her? She was different too… 

He looked away, and let the shadow on his arm twist through his fingers, cooing softly to him. “We should go to the cave,” he said after a moment. There was a feeling that it was the  _ wrong _ place to go, but it was somewhere to  _ start _ . “On Muspelheim. I… I can take Sif there. In my pathways.” He shifted on his feet awkwardly and moved back to the bed. The shadow slipped free from his arm and curled around Loki’s leg. The seidr he was trying to give the trickster was being accepted less and less. 

“We can go and look. See if maybe Loki missed something. Or if I did when I found him.” 

* * *

**_"We will take Storm,”_ ** Yggdrasil whispered.  **_“He can walk our branches, but he must put on his boots.”_ **

Frigga hid a smile at Yggdrasil’s admonishing tone. She turned to her eldest son. “Best fetch your traveling gear, darling.” Thor gave her a confused look but turned and left after a moment, heading back to his rooms. Frigga turned to Fandral. 

“Thor will take his own path and meet you on Muspelheim,” she told him, watching the tense line of his shoulders relax a bit at the reassurance that he would not be  _ ordered _ to take Thor on his shadowpaths. Frigga knew it required close contact and she would not have forced that on Fandral.

She looked at Sif. “Are you all right, dear?”

Sif nodded and gave her a tremulous smile. “I’ll feel better when Loki is well.”

_ Won’t we all. _

Sif looked down at what she was wearing. “I’m going to go put on my armor.” She touched Fandral’s hand questioningly, and when he didn’t pull away from her, wrapped him in a hug. “I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.” She kissed his cheek and left the room. 

Frigga watched her go, and watched as Fandral pressed his fingers against the bare skin of Loki’s ankles, his seidr glowing about his hand. The boy had a worried frown on his face as he watched his seidr. 

“It’s the venom,” Frigga said gently. “It did the same thing after the hjartahundur bit you. Your seidr levels were already dangerously low when you were brought to us.” She took the hand he didn’t have pressed against Loki’s leg and held it in both of hers. “We feared you were lost to us then, but you fought your way through, and you have taught my son much in the short time you have been with us. I have no doubt your resilience is something he will emulate, as well.” She pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. “May your hunt go well, my son.” 

* * *

Thor walked quickly down the halls to his rooms. He tossed his loose clothing off into the corner and tugged on the thicker things he wore under his armour. He was shoving his hair back into a rough braid when the journal fluttered again and Thor sighed at it. 

“I won’t leave you behind,” he muttered, and bent to tug on his boots. Cape fastened in place, Thor picked the small book up and tucked it away in the space between his chest and the armour. Mjolnir flew easily to his hand, and he hung her from his belt. A brief pat down to ensure he was properly dressed after all, and he stomped over to the door, flinging it open and then stumbling as he stepped out onto a massive tree bough. “What -” 

He looked down and swallowed harshly. He recognised this place. “Uh, hello, Yggdrasil,” he said quietly and gave a respectful bow. “Are you taking me to Muspelheim?” 

The tree didn’t answer him with words, but he heard a fond creaking and took hold of the small branch that twisted itself about his wrist. “A guide?” The little branch tugged on him, and he could have sworn the rustling leaves sounded like laughter when he tripped on his own feet trying to keep up. “Alright, alright. I’m coming!” 

Yggdrasil’s branch was a sturdy, straight line beneath his feet and he was grateful to her. Loki often described her pathways as winding and tricky, and he knew she was looking out for him. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I’ve been… learning your lessons. Learning Loki, and Fandral too. My eyes are - are clearer now.” A fond sounding rustle to his side, and Thor walked carefully in silence. The doorway opened and he blinked at the harsh light of Muspelheim. Before he stepped out, however, Thor turned around and pressed a hand to the branch holding it open. 

“I will find a way to save him. You have my word,” he swore softly. “I promise you, Yggdrasil. He’ll walk your branches again.” 

He stepped out onto Muspelheim and walked slowly over to where Fandral and Sif were standing at the entrance to a cave. Fandral was frowning down into it, and Sif looked faintly green. “Are you well, Sif?” he asked her and she waved a hand at him. 

“Shut. Up,” she bit out through clenched teeth. 

“It made her nauseous,” Thor turned in surprise to Fandral, but the thief still wasn’t looking at him. “It’s down here. I’m ready when you two are.” 

Thor sighed silently, and unhooked Mjolnir, her weight familiar and comforting in his hand. “Lead the way,” he said quietly. “I shall follow.” 

“There’s a fucking first,” Fandral muttered, but threw his seidr out to light the way and walked into the cave. 

* * *

The smell of rotting meat made her stomach clench. Sif pressed her arm across her mouth to try and block the scent, but it was everywhere. She was certain she would be burning these clothes when they got back to Asgard. The smell was certainly soaked into the fabric. 

The tunnel was long, but Fandral’s blue seidr was a comforting light. She could see the shadows curling and shifting at the corners of the tunnel, but there wasn’t a sinister feeling from them. Hadn’t been, even from the ones in the healing halls. Not really. 

Fandral’s shadowpaths had been cold and they had pressed up against her like something wet, like swimming in a pond and having a lily pad suddenly slap against your skin. She had felt the way they played over her, pressed her down, but Fandral’s hand had never left hers. 

It had still made her feel sick, walking along what felt like some unsteady line beneath her feet, with her eyes firmly shut and a piece of cloth tied around them. And she’d thought she was going to be sick the moment she stepped out, staggering away from Fandral. She hadn’t been, but Ymir’s tits, her stomach did not like this.

Still, she would take Fandral’s shadowpaths any day over this tunnel.

She wanted to ask Fandral about his shadows, if they were always alive and talkative before, crawling over him like pet snakes. And she would ask him, later. For now, the three of them remained quiet, moving down deeper and deeper underground as the tunnel just continued to slope, listening and watching for anything unexpected to come out of the darkness. 

When the tunnel ended, the sheer size of the cavern was unexpected, but the smell of blood that had begun to slowly seep into her awareness was unavoidable. It was a thick weight in the air, sticky, like the unnatural smells from Nidavellir’s forges. 

Fandral’s light brightened, flooding the room with the color, and Sif didn’t know where to look first. Bones and tattered, bloody animal hides, deep furrows from claws scraping in stone, piles of shit and deep puddles of blood and

“Norns have mercy,” she muttered, staring at the  _ thing _ that could not possibly be a hearthound. It was far too large, the size of Sleipnir, or his Sire, not a dog. She stared at it, at the ruin of its eye and the jutting white of a bond from a leg that simply ended. 

The state that Loki was in… 

“He should be dead,” she whispered harshly. She thought of the scratches in the breastplate he had been wearing, claws sharp enough to leave marks in dragonhide, and shuddered. 

* * *

“And he would be if it weren’t for the gift I left him,” Fandral said, and Thor glanced at him. The thief was still and tense, his eyes the only part of him moving. “I found him there.” He nodded to the enormous pool of mostly dried and congealed blood at their feet, and Thor shuffled his feet back a little from its edge. There were marks in the dirt, in the  _ blood _ , that easily showed where Fandral had rushed in and stopped. Marks that showed where Fenris had been, where they’d obviously fought to stabilise Loki to bring him home. “It was dead. Fen pulled the dagger out.” 

Thor moved to the dead hearthound and ran a hand over its hide, grimacing at the slightly tacky feel of the half-dried gore on it. “And Loki?” he asked, ignoring Fandral’s scoff. “How did you…” 

“What, how did someone like  _ me _ keep him alive?” Fandral bit out, and Thor winced. Fandral’s voice was hard and cold, and Thor felt every word like a physical blow. Where there had once been respect and something that he’d always thought to be friendliness, there was nothing now but bitterness and a new hardness to the thief. “I am surprisingly good at more than just sucking cock, Thor.” 

Sif made a weird wheezing noise, but Thor didn’t look at her. “I am sorry,” he said softly. “That… I only meant - he was so hurt -” 

“I used my  _ ómannleg seidr _ ,” Fandral spat. “And I forced his fucking heart to beat steady and I shoved my fingers into his shoulder and pinched his fucking artery closed.” 

Thor swallowed and nodded once, turning back to the stacks of bones and ruined hides. “There’s nothing here,” he murmured.

* * *

Sif sighed quietly. Thor had gotten a good taste of what it was like to be on the outs with the people he loved in Asgard, but she it seemed Fandral’s time living away from Asgard had made that rod of steel in his backbone a permanent fixture. He wasn’t breaking it apart for Thor anymore. Frankly, she thought it was about time. 

She and Thor had worked out their issues over the course of the last four months. She’d taken him to the sparring ring more than once and for the first time in her life, not held back. The third day she’d put him on his back in the dirt, she’d taken him to one of the taverns in the lower town, both of them dressed as nothing more than farmers, and let him sit there and listen to the way the men in the tavern spoke about women. 

She’d watched him the entire time, and seeing the look of shock turn into disgust had gone a long way to easing her temper at bit. It hadn’t hurt that when one of the patrons got handsy and slapped her ass, Thor had decked him. 

And when they’d gotten back to Asgard, after they’d dropped the drunk with the broken face off to Eir, they’d had a very long talk and Sif had explained a few things. 

Compared to the other Realms, Asgard was  _ barbaric.  _ Not only did they punish people for being samkynhneigð, but they were the only realm where women were shunned if they didn’t act  _ womanly.  _ Thor had long accepted that Sif was disinterested in becoming someone’s wife, and she had lived in the palace long enough that the people there had accepted her for what she was: a warrior. But she lived in the palace because her father had given her an ultimatum - marry or get out. She gotten out, and by chance or design, the princes had been out among the town when she was beating the ass the some _stykki af skít_ who tried to touch her. 

Loki, a man who was looked at as unmanly for his fighting style and abilities, had taken one look at the woman who was looked at as unwomanly and dragged her right over to Frigga. 

Sif had only learned later that Frigga had been a shieldmaiden as well as a princess of Vanaheim, and though she acted much the demure queen, she still practiced her skills as a warrior. Sif had been given a home in the palace when she’d explained her story, one that not even Loki knew, and she had trained with Frigga for years before she ever set foot in the sparring fields. 

She was fairly certain the story had opened Thor’s eyes a little more to the truth of how behind the times Asgard was. He’d been working the past six months to understand, and the changes were noticeable. Fandral had only been  _ gone _ then, living away from Asgard by his own choice. Thor was going to get a very good look at what his past treatment of the man had made of the usually mild-mannered thief.

It had been inevitable, really. She had a little sympathy for Thor, enough to give him a small pat on the back as she walked past, but that was all. This was a lesson long-time coming and he was going to have to work  _ damn hard _ to earn Fandral’s respect, if it was even possible for him to. That, ultimately, was up to Fandral. 

“Even with… that,” She waved a hand at the pool of blood (how was Loki still alive after losing so much?), “it seems unlikely anything slipped by you. But I’d rather check to be sure. So spread out, boys. See if you can find what we’re here for, or where we’re really supposed to be.” 

She headed over toward that pile of bones she had seen. Much smaller than the ones from her nightmares, but unsettling just the same. 

* * *

“There’s so much blood though,” Thor muttered, “Why so much blood?” Fandral couldn’t help the eyeroll. 

“Well it wasn’t for slick, it doesn’t work like that.” Thor stumbled his step and Fandral smirked. “Oil is better. The Midgardians make the best stuff though. Stays  _ wet _ and  _ slippery  _ for hours.” Thor flushed and he grinned. “Almost as wet a woman, I’ve heard.” 

“That - that’s not. I only meant, there’s so much here that’s…” Thor was fumbling his words and losing focus and Fandral crossed his arms with a brow raised. 

“Not much fun to have something uncomfortably sexual tossed in your face any time you make a comment, is it?” 

He moved away from the congealed puddle and Thor, and back towards the entrance. “There’s nothing here.” He flicked his fingers and the seidr burning above their heads flared brighter still, illuminating every nook and cranny of the cave. “There’s nothing here but bones and blood.” 

"I agree,” Thor said and Fandral snorted. 

“That’s a first.” 

He could almost  _ hear _ Sif rolling her eyes, but he was past caring. He’d had six months on his own to learn that he didn’t have to be what Asgard dictated. He didn’t need Thor’s approval to be happy. He and Loki were speaking again, his nightmares had eased up and the locals in the worlds he’d visited had done wonders for his self-esteem. 

Plus,  _ no one _ took less shit then a Midgardian with a differing opinion. He’d learned so many creative new insults. 

“We should go back,” he said. “See if there’s not some clue our devious little trickster has hidden away in a book or pocket.” 

He wanted to come back here alone. Bring Fenris and let the pup sniff it out properly. Fenris had the unique ability to sniff out magic, and he had a feeling there was  _ something _ about this place. Something somewhere that he just couldn’t see for himself. He clapped his hands and called his seidr back to him with a rush, leaving just a faint flicker to light the way up out of the tunnel. 

Back in the dirty sunlight of Muspelheim, he sighed. One thing he realised that he had in common with Midgardians like him, was that they were oftentimes braver in the dark. Seeing Thor straighten up, watching the massive muscles flex and move as he moved rocks over the entrance made Fandral’s guts curdle a little. He could’ve very easily pushed it too far down there. Whatever madness had come over him was fading and he turned away and held a hand out to Sif. 

“Do you want to come back with me, Sif? Or would you prefer to go along Yggdrasil this time?” 

* * *

Sif slipped her hand easily into Fandral’s, giving him a smile. “I want to try your shadows again. Maybe I’ll feel less like throwing up on your shoes this time.” 

Fandral grinned at her, but there was an edge of nervousness in it. She ignored it for the moment. “See you back at Asgard, Thor!” She gave Fandral’s hand a squeeze and shut her eyes.

The shadows were just as cold and wet as they had been the first time, but she was ready for it this time. She still shivered when the shadows folded around her. They even seemed to press beneath the blindfold around her eyes, though she knew if she opened her eyes, that thick black cloth would keep her from seeing whatever could be seen before they were burned out of her skull.

“They’re alive?” she asked softly. “The talking… it’s not new?”

* * *

Fandral smiled at her, even though she couldn’t see it. The shadows were all over her. They were petting at her face and hands, playing through her hair. “They’re as alive as Yggdrasil,” he said fondly. “They’re noisy and they’re my… family, in a way. I can’t ever remember not having them there.” 

One of the older ones pressed up against his cheek in a move he knew was like a kiss. “They like you, too.” 

**_Pretty warrior. Strong. Protector._ **

_ She is, _ he thought, and squeezed at Sif’s hand.  _ She’s our protector.  _

“C’mon,” he said. “Three steps to your left and we’re back.” 

**_Home?”_ **

“Not yet,” he murmured. “Soon. We’ve gotta save the damsel in distress first.” 

* * *

Sif blinked as the blindfold was pulled off, the sudden brightness of the Healing Halls jarring after such thick darkness. She looked around but all of the shadows were gone, and she felt a little sorry for that. She didn’t even feel sick this time. 

“They’re lovely,” she told Fandral, turning back and grinning at him. He smiled and squeezed her hand, and she pulled him into a hug. She wanted to tell him not to worry about Thor, that he wouldn’t hurt Fandral, and she wouldn’t have let him if he tried, but she didn’t want to bring his nervousness to the surface. Besides that, she felt a little guilty that she had never acted before about the way that Thor treated Fandral. She had made his disapproval clear, but she should have been more firm. 

She turned and slipped into the room where Loki was being kept, pulling Fandral behind her. It had only been a couple hours that they were gone, but either she had forgotten how badly injured Loki was, or he looked worse than he had. 

Sif moved over to the bed, placing her hand on Loki’s head. His skin was burning hot, and there were cloths spread out alongside his neck and in his armpits with chunks of ice resting on them. She could feel the cold coming off them, and she could see how wet the towels and Loki’s clothes were. They were melting fast against the force of his fever.

“Good, you’re back.” Sif looked up as Eir came into the room, and the healer had a very serious expression on her face that immediately curdled Sif’s good mood. “The All-Mother has escorted Thor to his rooms for the evening. He can’t be here tonight.” 

She felt Fandral step closer but didn’t take her eyes from Eir. Why couldn’t Thor be here tonight? What was going on?

“We need the two of you to go to Jotunheim. Loki’s fever spiked while you were gone. You leave immediately. King Laufey knows you’re coming. You’re to pick up whoever he chose as the best person to help and bring them back with you. We need to get Loki’s fever down immediately or he won’t make it til dawn.” 

* * *

Fandral shoved forwards and slid his hand into Loki’s and squeezed it tightly. 

It was like squeezing a doll hand. Burning hot, but limp and lax. “Loki?” he whispered, and shook the hand in his. “C’mon babe. Lo, open your eyes?” 

He could feel nothing but the burning heat rolling off him and the faint pulse in his wrist where Fandral’s fingers sat. 

And then Sif was tugging him away, Eir was shouting at them to get gone and Fandral blinked and raised a hand in surprise to his wet face and wondered why it was raining inside the healing halls. 

“Jotunheim,” he mumbled. “Okay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations:**
> 
> ómannleg - unmasculine  
> stykki af skít - piece of shit


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helblindi is brought to Asgard, and Fandral learns another of Loki's secrets.

The Asgardian delegation was late. Admittedly, not by much, but by enough that his stomach was protesting the extra half-leg of venison he’d eaten and the extra two tankards of mead to wash it down. 

“They will hear that rumbling and think it’s the ice breaking beneath their feet.” Helblindi grinned up at his father and patted his stomach gently. 

“In my defence-” 

“There is no defence for being a pig, but by all means, continue.” 

“ _ In my defence _ , I had already planned on eating extra before you demanded that I go to fucking Asgard. I don’t even  _ like _ Asgard.” 

“Bad word! And no one likes Asgard!” 

Helblindi snorted and ruffled Byleistr’s short black hair fondly. “True that, kiddo. But you can’t actually  _ say  _ that to Asgardians.” 

“But they’re buttfaces.” 

Laufey choked on the air and wheezed beside them. Helblindi rolled his eyes. “Buttfaces, Byleistr, really? Where did you pick that up from?” 

“A weird guy called, um, Star Prince? He had the talkin’ tree!” 

“The trader? Weird guy in the mask and red coat?” 

“Yeah! He said - he  _ said _ \- he saved a  _ dude _ who got punched all in his face by a ‘gardian!” 

“Asgardian,” Laufey corrected weakly, and Helblindi thumped his old man helpfully on the back. “Not helping, my son.” 

Helblindi took his hand back and tugged uncomfortably on his  _ arth braster _ fur vest and wished he’d picked one that wasn’t so tight. But mother had demanded he dress in his best. So, uncomfortably tight fur vest, thick black leggings and boots and the stupid scratchy green tunic it was. “Rather be naked like the wildlings on the borders,” he muttered.

“No one wants’ta see that much of  _ your _ butt, Blindi.” 

“Shut up!”

“You!” 

“BOTH OF YOU!” Laufey roared, and Helblindi snapped his jaw shut. His father’s red eyes narrowed at him in displeasure, and he felt shame in his belly alongside all the meat and mead. 

“Sorry pop,” he muttered, and heard Byleistr’s half-assed apology from his other side. 

“I do hate to interrupt,” came a new voice and Helblindi winced. His mother was going to skin him alive when he got home. “But we’re looking for Laufey King?” 

* * *

It was very strange, Sif decided, staring at a group of people who so many of Asgard called enemy, and not holding her sword in her hand. It was even stranger to see a Frost Giant who was smaller than she was. A child.

She knew, of course, that there must have been Frost Giant children, and yet for some reason, she thought the living, talking shadow in the healing halls had been less strange than large red eyes staring at her out of such a small face. 

“Buttface!” the little one declared, before bolting back behind one of the others as cries of “Byleistr!” filled the air. 

“I am Laufey King,” the taller of the two said, turning back to them. “You are the two we were told to expect from Asgard.” 

Sif and Fandral both bowed. “Yes, your majesty.” Fandral was still slightly shaky next to her, for all his smartass greeting did well to hide it, so Sif took the lead. “I am Sif and this is Fandral. We were told to bring whoever you said would be best.”

Laufey King nodded, looking at them closely a moment before waving a hand at the Frost Giant next to him. “This is my son, Helblindi. He will be returning with you along your… shadows?”

* * *

Thor slammed his door shut behind him and threw Mjolnir at the wall with a frustrated yell. She stopped just short of smashing through the stones, and landed gently on the floor before it. 

He’d been banished from the healing halls for the night with no real explanation given. He ran frustrated hands through his hair and yanked on the short strands in anger. 

**_“Not about you.”_ ** He sighed and turned back to the bed where he’d tossed Loki’s journal.  **_“Look.”_ **

The pages ruffled and turned and settled open on the blankets. Thor threw himself onto the bed beside it and picked the book up. 

_ ‘There’s a witch who lives in the forests of a small planet that sits between Midgard and Jotunheim on Yggdrasil’s branches. She goes by the name of Angrboda, though I’m not certain that’s her real name. I think if I looked for her again, I wouldn’t be able to find her.  _

_ I won’t look for her again. Yggdrasil is already burning the pathways to her planet. I’ve never seen the World Tree so angry, but she’s furious, and that helps a little. It’s nice to have someone on my side after what she tried to do.  _

_ Angrboda is powerful enough that I’ve heard her mentioned before in books, but none of them said that she became powerful from stealing other people’s seidr. I suppose no one who encountered her before survived meeting her. I wouldn’t have, if not for Yggdrasil. Even with her interference, my seidr is ridiculously diminished. I don’t think it’s ever been this low before, and I don’t feel well.  _

_ But I’m at the one place I’m fairly certain she’d never dare to look for me. I’ve never been to Niflheim before. I didn’t think I would have been able to come here without dying, though perhaps I’m close enough that passing through is easy. That should be a frightening thought, but everything pales next to Angrboda. She stuck her hand inside me. She grabbed my seidr, my soul, in her fist. I feel… dirty. And I hurt in places inside of me that I didn’t know I could feel. _

_ Perhaps Niflheim is closer than I thought. Funny. It’s not as terrifying as I thought it would be. Not ugly or dark. It’s pretty. There are these lights in the walls that move around. They twinkle. I think they might be stars that died out and fell. I didn’t know they came to Niflheim when they died. And there’s singing, like a lullaby that echoes through the stone. It’s comforting. I think this must be a place people feel safe lying down to sleep. I feel like I could. Like I could stay here and everything would be okay.  _

_ Yggdrasil is holding onto me tightly, though. She keeps brushing her branches through my hair and petting me, and her vines are twined quite tightly around my legs. It’s all right, though. I trust her. We’re just here so I can rest. It’s safe. I think, if Angrboda came here, she wouldn’t be able to leave, but Yggdrasil will keep me safe. _

_ I'm very tired, though. I’m going to sleep for a while.’  _

**_“Understand. Go.”_ **

Thor’s stomach was rolling, and he set the book down gently. “He went to… to a witch?... Loki,  _ why _ ?” 

The journal shuddered briefly, but didn’t move again. Thor lay in silence, and stared out his window at the nightsky. 

Loki had gone to a witch who had  _ stolen _ his seidr. Reached in and taken a piece of him. 

Thor sat up slowly.

She had  _ taken a piece of him _ . 

“Fuck me,” he breathed. 

**_“Clever storm cloud. Tomorrow you go.”_ **

* * *

Frigga slipped back into the room where her son lay, closing the door behind her. 

There was a guard standing outside the healing halls who had been set there to keep everyone out until they were permitted into the rooms. When Fandral and Sif returned from Jotunheim, she would be sending Sif to her room, as well. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep Fandral from simply coming back and lingering amongst his shadows, so she had no intention of even trying. Better that he not be hiding if something should happen again. 

She sat down in the chair next to the bed and curled her fingers tightly around Loki’s hand. He was achingly hot, his skin flushed red all the way to his chest. His breaths came in short, sharp pants and she grabbed one of the cloths from a nearby basin and brushed it over his head, wiping away the sweat. 

“They’ll be back soon, my little raven,” Frigga whispered, bringing his hand to her cheek. “Don’t go away.”

She hadn’t given Thor any explanation as to why he couldn’t stay with Loki overnight and she knew he would be angry, but could not in good conscience let him stay there. While his past words about Jotun was one of the reasons he was not asked to go to Jotunheim via the Bifrost or Yggdrasil, Frigga also didn’t want him around due to how quickly Loki’s health was declining. Fandral and Sif had been told that his fever had spiked, but Eir had left out that Loki had suffered a seizure when it did, and he’d stopped breathing for long enough to have Eir nervous. 

The ice bath they put him in had helped, but there was a chance he could have another, especially if his fever stayed so high. She didn’t want him around for that. Seeing it herself had been terrifying and as much as she knew Thor wanted to be there for his brother, that sort of thing would haunt him. 

There was a bare whisper of sound and Frigga glanced behind her to see Fandral pulling the blindfolds off Sif and a young Jotun. 

“Prince Helblindi,” she said, offering as sincere a smile she could manage. “Welcome, and thank you for coming.” She looked at Sif. “Darling, I am going to have to ask you to leave.” Sif opened her mouth to protect but Frigga raised her hand. “No arguments. You can see Loki in the morning. For now, please, go to Thor.”

Sif stared at her for a moment, looking mutinous, but she had lived with them long enough to know Frigga would never ask such a thing lightly. After a moment, she turned and bowed to Helblindi with a quiet “thank you” and caught Fandral’s fingers as she walked by. Frigga didn’t say anything when she stopped and kissed Loki on the cheek. 

“Goodnight, All-Mother.” 

“Goodnight, dear,” Frigga said quietly, and watched the young woman leave. She waited a few moments before turning back to the other two. 

“Let us know what you need, Prince Helblindi.” She stood from her chair and caught Fandral’s hand. “Sweetheart, I need to warn you about something.” 

* * *

Loki had had a seizure. A bad enough one that he’d  _ stopped breathing _ . 

Fandral stared at the All-Mother - at  _ Frigga  _ \- in horror. “He… he’s dying,” he whispered. “Isn’t he?” 

She nodded at him, and squeezed his hands. “There’s something else you need to know.” Fandral let her guide him over to the bed, and they each put a hand on Loki’s burning skin. Helblindi Prince was speaking quietly with Eir by the door, and Frigga sighed. 

“All-Mother?” He waited until she looked at him again. “Tell me.” 

Frigga took a deep breath and let it out in a huge gust. “Loki is a Jotun by birth,” she said simply. “He came to us as a baby as a clause in a peace treaty we now hold with Laufey King.” 

Fandral’s mouth was dry and he could hear an odd kind of ringing sound in his ears. Frigga put a hand on his cheek and gently tapped it. “Come back to me, sweetheart,” she murmured and Fandral blinked hard to clear the dancing spots from his eyes.

“A - a Jotun?” he repeated softly. “Loki’s… a Jotun?” 

“And he is my son. And the Prince. And Thor’s brother. And your beloved.” 

Fandral nodded. “It… it doesn’t change who he is,” he mumbled. “It’s just another part of him.” 

Frigga was beaming at him, and Fandral leaned his head forward and let his forehead rest on her shoulder. “I’m so proud of you,” she said softly. “So proud to call you ours.” 

“He’s still… still Loki?” She nodded. “And he… Helblindi,” he said slowly. “He’s here because - because Loki needs to… he needs ice?” 

“In a way,” she answered him, and nodded at both Helblindi and Eir as they came over to the bed. “He may yet need to be in his Jotun form.” 

Helblindi peered down at Loki and clapped a careful hand to his cheek and pulled it away with a pained hiss. “Fuck, he’s hot,” he muttered. “He needs to change. Jotun’s shouldn’t have fevers like this.” Helblindi turned to Eir. “Ice bath. No water, just ice. We’ve got to jolt his system into transforming or he’ll be dead in an hour or two.” 

Eir nodded and ran into the washroom, Helblindi didn’t hesitate to scoop Loki up into his arms and follow her. Fandral gripped tighter to Frigga’s hands and bit his lip. “Mother,” he whispered. “I don’t want him to die.” 

* * *

Frigga curled an arm around Fandral and held him close. “I know, darling. We’re going to do all we can to keep him with us. He is not lost yet.”

  
She moved into the washroom behind Helblindi, keeping Fandral close to her. Eir already had a good layer of ice in the tub and Helblindi moved to lay Loki down on top of it, carefully guiding her son’s back to rest against the side.    
  
“Fandral, right?” the prince asked, and Frigga felt Fandral nod next to her. “Come hold him for me, keep him upright.”   
  
Frigga let go of the boy and he didn’t hesitate to move over, dropping to his knees next to the tub and gripping Loki’s shoulders.    
  
“Mind his head,” she said gently. “He has horns, Fandral.”   
  
The thief nodded and adjusted his position slightly so he wouldn’t be impaled if Loki shifted suddenly.    
  
She moved to where Eir was pulling huge chunks of ice from a chest she had pulled into the room. Frigga grabbed one and broke it up in her hands, dumping it into the tub on top of her son’s limp form. Helblindi had a hand on Loki’s chest and was frowning sharply at him, muttering something under his breath.    
  
She and Eir were packing the ice up close to him, around his chest and shoulders, when his breathing shifted. The short panting breaths became deeper, Loki’s body shifting as his chest rose and fell quickly with each huge inhalation.    
  
Helblindi was muttering to Loki, words too low for Frigga to hear, but she could see his hand glowing softly as it pressed against the skin under his chin, at his collarbone, at each arm pit, along his chest.    
  
Loki’s body began to twitch, arms jerking minutely and his chest jolting lightly. Frigga could see the muscle in his neck spasming against the skin, and then the sounds of his breathing vanished.    
  
“No!” Fandral yelled, his arms tightening around Loki, and Frigga felt her heart twist in her chest.    
  
But then the blue was running across Loki’s skin like oil catching flame and he was gasping in a huge breath. She watched his skin change quickly, the white horns spiral up away from his head. His mouth was hanging open slightly and he was breathing normally for the first time in hours.    
  
“Damn stupid fucking little shit,” Eir snarled beside her, and Frigga choked on a laugh that became a sob.    
  
“Helblindi?”   
  
The Jotun prince had a hand on Loki’s chest again, his magic fluttering around his fingers. “His temperature’s dropping.” He grimaced. “Sorry, I’ve never seen someone get a forced change without seidr. I didn’t realize it would look like that.”   
  
Fandral had his face pressed against Loki’s shoulder and she could see the thief’s shoulders shaking. “It’s all right, lad,” Eir sighed. “You said we needed to shock his system. Makes sense that meant sending him into cold shock.” She snagged Loki’s hand, checking his pulse. “How low do you want to take him?”   
  
“Not too much. A few degrees lower than your internal temperature for now. Once he’s that far down, his body should start adjusting on its own to freeze the fever out. Or I can manipulate his internal temperatures. Some Jotun can’t self-regulate.”

* * *

Loki was cold to touch now, but not uncomfortably so. He had horns, blue skin and a heartbeat and he was fucking breathing again. Which was all that mattered for now. 

Because Fandral was going to fucking kill him when he woke up. 

He kept his face hidden in his shoulder and refused to move. If it was a matter of him being in the way of the healing that Helblindi was doing, or if Eir needed to get to Loki, he’d move. Until then, he was staying put. 

A small tendril of his own dark blue seidr flickered out as he tried to reach out to Loki with it. But there was… nothing. Where usually Loki glowed and burned with his green, there was just…  _ nothing _ . And that frightened him far more than blue skin and horns ever would. Eir and Helblindi were speaking, he could hear Frigga’s voice joining theirs but he couldn’t seem to understand the words. It was just noise. Like having his head underwater while they spoke. 

He took a deep breath and sighed into Loki’s skin, trying to ignore the way his face was wet and the sigh sounded more like a sob. The ice was beginning to make his fingers numb, and the skin on his arms burn, but he refused to move. 

“Don’t die on me,” he begged Loki quietly, pressing the words into his skin, trying to force them into Loki’s unconscious mind. “Don’t, alright? Let me take you to all the places I’ve been.” He pressed a barely there kiss to Loki’s neck before he turned his face back to his shoulder. There were still voices talking - Helblindi’s deep rumbling voice, like ice falling mingling in with Eir’s almost hoarse voice and the soft tones of the All-Mother. 

_ Fucking shit _ , he thought and had to fight not to panic for a moment. He’d called her  _ mother _ . 

_ I’ll have to apologise _ . 

For now though, he took another deep breath and started to talk softly to Loki. “There was a Festival of Lights this week. I can’t remember when because I don’t know what day it is, but I wanted to take you. I left it in our journal. It’s beautiful. It’s how they mark the seasons changing. Because it’s almost winter, they were green and gold and blue and brown, for autumn and for winter. All our colours,” he rubbed his burning eyes into Loki’s cool skin. “Please don’t go, Loki,” he pleaded under his breath. “Don’t leave before me.” 

* * *

Frigga held Fandral to her as Helblindi lifted Loki from the ice bath. She ran her fingers through his hair and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Help me get him into some fresh pants.”

  
The two of them followed the prince and watched him lay Loki back down on the bed. It took only a moment to tug his soaked pants off and get a fresh pair on him.    
  
It hurt to see Loki like this. Limp and so still, not reacting to anything anymore.    
  
Helblindi moved over to Fandral, touching his shoulder briefly to get the thief’s attention. “Here,” he said, taking Fandral’s hand and curling their fingers together. The prince’s seidr glowed briefly, curling around Fandral’s hand and running up his arm, sinking into his skin.    
  
The Jotun pulled away with a soft smile. “That should keep his skin from burning you.” He tilted his head. “Having his mate nearby should help.”   


* * *

“His… what?” 

Helblindi snorted. “His mate. You know,” he gestured awkwardly and the gave it up and shrugged instead. “His mate. Lover. Life partner. Husband? I’ll be honest, I don’t know what it’s called here, but whatever the term you’re his that thing. And having you close can only help.” 

The thief went a remarkable shade of red which faded to an alarming shade of  _ white _ , and Helblindi put a soft hand on his shoulder. The poor man was shaking and his eyes - which looked like the honey Helblindi loved on his oatcakes - were wide as a dinner plate. 

“Oh no,” he muttered. “I broke it. Uh, Healer Eir? I broke it.” He nudged the poor man to the healer, and shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t mean to. I just… I mean, we all heard him in there. He’s in love with him, right? So… so he’s Loki’s  _ curiad calon annwyl _ right? We just celebrated Ewythr Nál and his  _ curiad calon annwyl’s  _ fiftieth anniversary. And those two look… the same,” he finished quietly, and stared at the mortal man. Something clicked into place in his mind, in the same random way it always did. 

“You already told him, huh.” A tiny nod from the man, and Helblindi saw him eyeing the exit. “You can’t leave him like this,” he said gently. “Look, even if he… rejected you-” the flinch the thief gave was so violent it made his neck cramp to watch it.  _ Damn _ . “- you still need to stay. What’s left of his seidr will look for you. And he can’t hurt you. Holding him will only help, at this point.” 

* * *

Eir sighed and tugged Fandral back over to Loki’s bed. “We both know you will also feel better if you stay. There is a guard at the hall entrance keeping anyone who isn’t bleeding to death out. Thor is in his room. Jotunheim welcomes partnerships of the same sex, and Frigga and I both approve. As does Odin, if you need to hear that.” She nudged him toward the bed. “Get on up there and hold him like you want to.”   
  
Fandral went, still shaking and nervous, and Eir sighed. What a whole fucking mess this all was. Not just the hearthound bite and the fact that the younger idiot prince had apparently been hunting the things, but the whole dancing about each other turning so badly for Fandral and Loki.    
  
Damn Bor to the deepest depths of Niflheim. The man had ruined more lives than he had ever helped during his reign.    
  
“Asgard is...” Helblindi seemed to search for words.    
  
“Full of morons?” Eir suggested. “Yes, though admittedly, the All-Father is trying to sort them out. It’s a slow process.” She flapped a hand at the bad. “And there have been casualties.”    
  
She sighed and rubbed her face. “I don’t suppose there’s anything more Jotunheim can do for a hearthound bite than we can?”   
  
Helblindi shook his head. “No. They don’t come to Jotunheim usually, because of the cold. We’ve never had much cause to look into them.”   
  
Eir nodded. “I guessed as much.”    
  
She moved over to Frigga, taking the woman’s hand in hers. Loki was out of her reach now, but she had been keeping an eye on it while Fandral, Sif, and Thor were gone.    
  
“He doesn’t have enough seidr to fight the venom,” she said quietly, feeling Frigga’s fingers tighten around hers. “The beast that bit him was strong, and he’s been fighting it, but his levels have dropped below half. There’s nothing more I can do for him except try to make him as comfortable as possible.” She eyed the woman sadly. “I’m sorry.”   
  
Frigga nodded, her face pale but her mouth set in a firm line. “There’s one more thing we can do.” She sent Eir a wavering smile. “We can pray Yggdrasil has a few more tricks up her sleeves.”   
  
Eir sighed. “I hope so.”   


* * *

Helblindi sat in silence as the night passed slowly. The man - Fandral - eventually fell into a light sleep, his face hidden in the crook of Loki’s neck. Helblindi snuck over and carefully eased a seidr barrier over his skin so it wouldn’t burn. 

Mostly though, he sat and he watched. He watched the way the healer seemed to nap like a feline. Only ever an hour or two here and there, before she was up again to check on Loki or Fandral. He watched the All-Mother as she slept in a spare bed beside her sons. He watched Fandral and the way his hand never left Loki’s. How even in his sleep he muttered and begged for Loki to wake up. 

There was not enough magic left in Loki to fight it anymore though. He’d never seen a hearthound bite up close, but he knew this one was different somehow. It seemed… infected in a way. 

The sun started to slowly rise, and Healer Eir sighed and looked to the door. She pressed a finger to her lips and waited till Helblindi had nodded before she opened it. A man with short, dirty blonde hair was standing there. He had blue eyes ringed with exhaustion and he was fully dressed in Asgardian armour - stupid cape and all. And by his side was the brave woman, Sif. 

“I can save Loki!” The big blonde said, and waved a book around. “Eir! I need Fandral. I cannot do this without him. We can save Loki. I know where much of his seidr is hiding! It was stolen by a witch. But I have… I have it all here. Yggdrasil is guiding us but we *must* leave. Please, please wake him.” 

Helblindi stared at him. The man sounded almost drunk, but in the way that those who have found a previously thought impossible solution so often do. He sat back in his chair as the Healer shook Fandral awake and he watched the All-Mother as she embraced big and blonde. 

Asgardians were a strange bunch, he decided. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> curiad calon annwyl - beloved heart mate
> 
> Ewythr - Uncle


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is the stupidest genius on Asgard, and Thor, Sif and Fandral follow the clues to try and find a cure.

**CHAPTER SIX**

* * *

**  
**Thor was making very little sense.   
  
Sif had gone to his rooms the night before, after changing out of her armor. He’d barely slept, alternating between pacing and muttering and reading that odd book.    
  
His explanations had been little help. He knew how to help Loki. Yggdrasil had told him. And something about the book he had that only opened to the same passage, the rest of its pages seemingly stuck together with magic.    
  
But he seemed sure, and Yggdrasil liked Loki enough she was surely trying to help. And Loki himself was still alive, pale but breathing on the bed. And there was a man sitting next to him, holding his hand.    
  
Sif studied him. His hair was very similar in shade to Fandral’s, although curlier, and his eyes were the very same green as Loki’s.    
  
He gave her a wink as Eir woke Fandral, but neither of them said anything. There would be time later for explanations. Even she felt the urge to move quickly pressing against her. They needed to hurry. Whatever it was they had to do, they needed to hurry.

* * *

“It’s Loki’s journal,” Fandral said bluntly, and shook his head. “Unbelievable, Thor.”

Thor sighed and scrubbed at his face. “Aye, it is his journal,” he admitted. “But Yggdrasil has been using it to - to educate me. When you left, Loki followed. And I stayed here, at first. Until the book told me where to go.”  
  
 _ **"We are not a book, Odinson.”**_

He stared at the shadow that was twisting itself around Fandral’s leg like a snake. It was… the voice? 

**_”We are. And now, you must go.”_ **

Fandral sighed. “Sure, I’ll just trust the asshole who… no. Never mind. Okay. Let’s uh, go.” 

Thor watched with a little awe as Fandral simply stepped forwards, his armour and boots all fading into view as he did. By the time he stood at their side by the door, he was dressed, armed and ready. The shadow was pressed against his neck and ear, and Fandral hesitated before they left. Thor caught the defiant look Fandral shot at him before the thief stomped back over to the bed and kissed Loki soundly on the lips. 

“I’ll be back soon, babe,” he said softly. “You promise me you’ll keep fighting. I know you can hear me, Lo. I love you.” 

He stalked back past Thor with his shoulders back and his spine ramrod straight. 

Thor heard Eir sigh loudly and gave a distracted wave as he hurried after Fandral. 

* * *

Frigga watched three of her children hurry from the room and sighed softly as she moved back to the bed where Loki lay. Helblindi’s grip shifted slightly on Loki’s wrist and the blue flooded back over both of their skins.    
  
“You look alike,” she said softly, taking a seat in the other chair and resting her hand on Loki’s leg. “You both have Laufey’s eyes.”   
  
“I wasn’t aware you knew us so well,” Helblindi admitted. “You knew me before I introduced myself.”   
  
Frigga smiled. “You were young when we adopted Loki, but not easy to forget. You marched right over to Odin and kicked him in the shin.”   
  
Helblindi dropped his face into his hand. “Of course I did.”   
  
“Your Mother was mortified,” she said, grinning at his quiet, _"_ _I'm_ mortified."   
  
“Odin thought you were very brave, though. Especially when you demanded that we not eat your baby brother. You spent half of negotiations in his lap, interrupting with questions about his beard and his eyepatch.“ Helblindi was groaning in horror but Frigga only chuckled lightly. “I think it helped ease all of our tensions, to be honest. You should be proud.”   
  
They were silent for a while as he recovered from his embarrassment. Frigga watched her son’s face. It wasn’t right for Loki to be so still.    
  
" _Will_ you tell him?”    
  
Frigga nodded. “We intended to long before this. We hadn’t expected there to be so many issues with battling Asgard’s perceptions. It’s pushed everything back.” She sent him a smile. “But we fully intend to tell him, and we will all come together so he may know his whole family.”   
  
Helblindi returned her smile. “Thank you.”   
  
“Of course. The treaties were for more than peace. They were to bring our worlds together. That always starts with family.”    
  
She looked back at her son, watched his chest rising steadily up and down. If the Norns were kind, all of her children would come back to her, and all of them the better for it.    


* * *

There were clearly making their way to the Observatory, but Sif had had just about enough of Thor’s manic glee and incomprehensible explanations.    
  
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would like for us to have a plan before we go traipsing off to wherever we are going. Where is that, by the way?” She flicked Thor’s ear. “And what did you mean Loki’s seidr was _stolen_?” She glanced at Fandral. “I didn’t know that could happen.”   


* * *

“It’s possible but it’s not an easy thing to do,” he said quietly. “It requires someone with extraordinary strength and skill. Someone who isn’t afraid of the cost of doing such a thing.” 

Thor turned and saw the sick expression on Fandral’s face as Sif asked him, “The cost?” 

“Seidr is… is  _ us _ ,” the thief explained, “it’s who we are. It’s our soul. You can’t just share it with anyone, there has to be a bond of trust, of something deeper than just trust or love between you. It takes more to share it then it does to steal it. To steal someones seidr is to steal a piece of their soul. To take away part of  _ who they are _ .” 

“Ymir’s balls,” Sif muttered. “And this… this witch? She has a part of Loki’s? And we’re going to what, just - just walk in and say please?” Sif turned her glare on Thor, and pointed back at Fandral. “What’s to say she won’t try it on him?” 

Thor shook his head. His head was spinning a little, and his plan to just… ambush the witch suddenly seemed childish and ill thought out. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I truly don’t.” 

Fandral stared at him for a long moment. “We go in prepared then,” the thief said firmly. “We’re not following your no doubt violent plan, Thor. We’ll do this  _ my _ way.” He paused and Thor swallowed hard before he stepped forward and held out the journal. 

“Maybe it will show you something?” 

Fandral didn’t reach out at first, but he did stare at it for a long moment before he shook his head. “No. But tell me, has he mentioned the hearthounds before?” Thor nodded. “What did he say?” 

“That he had plans to hunt them down,” Thor let the book fall open again to the entry from the night before. “And then there was him speaking of some cleansing ritual that failed, and he sought out An-Ang- uh,” he looked down at the page and spoke at the same time as Fandral, the thief’s voice low with fear. 

“Angrboda.” 

Thor looked at him and nodded. “You know of her.” 

“Everyone does. She… she’s like the monster under the bed for those of us with seidr. You don’t… don’t go there.” 

Sif frowned. “So, we have to go there. But she’s a seidr-soul stealing fucker that you need protecting from.” 

“As do you,” Fandral said. “She’ll hurt you too.” 

So they needed protection. More than magic and trickery, more than Mjolnir and swords. 

“Armour,” Thor muttered. “Something strong against magic.” The journal shook and Thor stared as the pages turned and rippled faster than he’d ever seen. 

“Well that’s different,” Sif said. 

_ ‘The hjartahundur are hideous creatures. Like a mix between wolves and lizards, they are large and terribly quick. Their hides are also a thick as some shields Tyr’s trainees use and I struggle to break through with my daggers.  _

_ As with most beasts, however, their eyes prove a weak point, and their mouth. It seems not even a monster such as this can survive a fireball erupting in its throat.  _

_ The smell of rotting meat that seems to follow them does not improve when they are dead. Pity.  _

_ I have been attempting to research them, to gather what information I can in preparation for hunting them all down. There is not much to be had, though. It seems few people survive meeting the beasts, and I thought perhaps that was due to their speed. I recently found something that suggested otherwise. _

_ The hjartahundur have some kind of weakness to seidr. I haven’t been able to get any kind of detailed account as to what this weakness *is,* and the sources I have found are old and none written in Asgardian. From what I can gather, however, their venom is deadly. It costs their saliva, sinking into any bite, and can only be fought off with the seidr of the person who was bitten.  _

_ I checked this in three different sources to be sure, but each one says the same. The only thing that can fight the venom in a person’s bloodstream is that person’s seidr.  _

_ There’s no confirmation yet in anything I have researched, but I can only assume that means that someone with no seidr would have no defense.  _

_ I can only thank the Norns and Sif’s skill that she had not been bitten, as well, or there would have been a karve burning.  _

_ This is just another reason to destroy the beasts. They are a danger to everyone, but they are death to those without seidr.  _

_ I have thought about asking Sif before to come with me, but I will not now. I... perhaps ridiculously, do not want Fandral anywhere near the creatures after what happened before. Who is to say a second bite wouldn’t be harder still to fight off?  _

_ I have asked Thor but he brushed me off. I’m tempted to ask again, anyway. His seidr is not as strong as mine, and of course he doesn’t even know that it is magic he wields, but he can summon an element of nature and that has power that I do not have access to.  _

_ I am undecided, however. I think he would understand immediately the connection between my hunting them and Fandral, but he might not listen to the rest and I do not want him to tell Eir. I know she would forbid me hunting them, but they must be stopped.  _

_ I will think on it.’ _

“Fuck me,” Fandral breathed, and then grinned at Sif when she shoved him with a muttered, “ _ pass, thanks”. _ “That stupid… Damnit!” He broke off and shoved his hands through his hair, pacing and muttering for a few minutes, before he came stomping back and pointed at the journal. “We need the hearthounds Loki hunted,” he said quietly. “Think. They repel or… or absorb or something, anything magical that’s thrown at them. Remember? Think!” 

Thor felt his mouth open in shock and closed it just as fast as the journal shook and rattled its pages in his hands. 

_ ‘The skins of the hjartahundur have an odd feature wherein they seem to absorb spells really well and spread the whole of it across their form.  _

_ I would have expected them to be more like dragonhide and resistant to the spells, but they’re the opposite. They seem to... thirst for it.  _

_ I wonder if the creatures don’t have some kind of inherent ability to take a spell and twist it their own means? The spells that I used against them rarely directly touched their skin, but if they had, I wonder how that might have altered our fight. If I had used fire on the thing’s hide, rather that shoving it down its throat, I wonder if it wouldn’t have then attacked me with my own flames.  _

_ A curious thing.  _

_ And curiosity has always been a weak point of mine, but this is fascinating. I’ve been experimenting with the skins I have, testing them with different spells. Some with truly amazing results. Some... a tad frustrating. The invisibility spell I tried on the one worked a little too well. I seem to have lost the skin entirely. It’s around here somewhere, I’m sure. Just invisible.  _

_ I’ve taken up a small cave on Jotunheim, far from the palace and any of the Jotun that might take offense to my lurking about. I’ve got it wrapped in so many wards now, they shouldn’t be able to find it unless they know to look for it.  _

_ It gives me a place to keep these skins and practice my magic on them. I have half an idea, nothing concrete yet, but this will give me a place to work and see if I can’t make sense of this idea.  _

_ I’ve heard more rumors of the hjartahundur on Alfheim. I didn’t find it the first time I looked, but these ones suggest I was too far north. I will be checking into the southern region come the morning and I’ll see if I can’t add to my collection of skins.  _

_ Perhaps I should bring the whole carcass of one back? I wonder if the rest of their bodies would work well under spells.  _

_ Nevermind. I don’t want that smell in my cave. Just the skins.’  _

Fandral gave a vicious grin and Thor returned it easily. 

“Well then,” Sif said cheerfully. “To Jotunheim we go.” 

* * *

She had expected they would have to search for a while to find the cave, but Fandral’s shadows seemed to know right where to lead them, and Yggdrasil the same for Thor.    
  
Fandral pulled the blindfold from around her eyes and she stared at the entrance to a cave.    
  
“I thought it would be harder to find,” she admitted, studying the entrance. There wasn’t even any sort of defenses up to stop them.    
  
Fandral chuckled lightly, though. He flicked his seidr at the cave entrance. Sif watched as a green wall flickered to life out of nowhere, sitting in the entrance. Fandral’s ball of seidr passed right through it. “Aw, Loki.” He sighed softly.   
  
Sif looked at the seidr wall as it faded from sight, and glanced at Fandral. He had a sad look on his face.    
  
She moved carefully, just in case the wall decided it only liked Fandral, and reached out to push her hand through where the thing had been. The green flickered to life, but her fingers passed right through it. There was only an odd tingle, like the feeling of water lapping at her skin where it touched.    
  
“It’s not keeping us out. Is it because we knew where to look?”   
  
“Maybe,” Fandral said, though he didn’t sound like he believed his words. “Come on.” He moved around her, stepping through the shield easily.    
  
Sif looked behind her, reaching back to grab Thor’s hand. “Come on, Thundercloud.” She tugged him forward after her, and they both moved into the cave.    
  
  
It wasn’t a very large cave, perhaps the size of Sif’s bedroom and receiving room together, but it seemed much smaller for the clutter. Everywhere she looked, there were skins hanging from the walls or draped over a rope line that stretched through the cave, or piled on the floor.    
  
There was a desk, nothing more than a slab of stone with a flat top carved out of the wall, with a small wooden stool sat in front of it. The entire thing, desk and stool both, was covered in pages of notes and stripes of hide. A nearby shelf, also smoothly carved from the stone - she could only assume by seidr - was stacked with journals that looked very similar to the one Thor had, with the exception of the labels along the spine.    
  
Sif pulled down the one labeled Weaknesses and flipped it open to a random page.    
  
' _My theories about the Hjartahundur being susceptible to the cold hold more weight than I realized. I went hunting for the beast in the south of Alfheim and slayed it with little fanfare. I was not expecting the second one to appear, though I should have been. They are clearly pack creatures._ __   
__   
_ I would have lost my head, or a good portion of it, at least, if not for Yggdrasil opening a portal and sending us both sprawling on the snowdrifts of Jotunhejm’s western edge.  _ __   
__   
_ I was expecting a violent fight, but the hjartahundur became almost instantly lethargic in the cold. They seem to have more reptilian properties than I realized and may be cold-blooded, rather than mammalian.  _ __   
__   
_ Although that makes me wonder if there aren’t eggs I should be looking for, as well. But that’s a different topic.  _ __   
__   
_ The creatures themselves are weak to the cold, but ice magic, for which I have something of a skill, affects them no differently than fire magic. The hide absorbs it and takes on its power. A useful fact.  _ __   
__   
_ More useful is the knowledge that ice spells may prove more efficient in destroying them, or even another trip to Jotunheim. The cold is their weakness.' _ __   
  
Sif slid the journal back onto the shelf, looking around at all of the skins in the room. What were they looking for?    
  
Her eyes scanned the papers on the desk and she found a decent drawing of a cloak, which a series of notes written beside it in Loki’s familiar hand, text neat but tiny.    
  
' _Experimenting With Passive Magic_ __   
__   
_ Spell of Magic Resistance, originally learned in Vanaheim Library, improved upon with the addition of a Shield Spell, non-reflective  _ __   
__   
_ Results: Incomplete protection. Cloak is resistant to active spells being cast at wearer, but seems to have little to no protection from passive spells. No noticeable difference in protection due to speed of casted spell, nor element.  _ __   
__   
_ Second, third, and fourth trials have revealed identical results.  _ __   
__   
_ Note: Consider making enough for Asgard’s guards. Talk to Father first.  _ __   
__   
_ Add. Note: Would require explaining where you got the materials. Talk to Father after all the hjartahundur are dead.' _ __   
  
“Loki, you are the dumbest smart person I know,” Sif muttered, picking up the piece of paper. “Fandral, look at this."

* * *

Loki’s brain, Fandral decided, was both one of the best things about him, and one of the worst as well. He moved so fast through his train of thought that he often left others in the dirt. But this… 

“The skins,” he said and looked around them. “We wear the skins. Go in silently and take the bitch down.” 

_ Incomplete protection. Cloak is resistant to active spells being cast at wearer, but seems to have little to no protection from passive spells. No noticeable difference in protection due to speed of casted spell, nor element.  _

“Incomplete protection.” Fandral bit his lip and tapped the paper against his chin as he muttered to himself. “So, we bundle up in the skins, like cloaks. Passive magic won’t be too much of a problem for  _ me _ , but it will be for those two. So, if I go in through the shadows, maybe send Thor ahead with a cloak and -” 

* * *

Thor stared at Fandral as the thief paced the length of the cave and back again, muttering nonstop to himself, the piece of paper resting against his bottom lip. 

Sif sighed happily beside him, and grinned up at him when Thor looked down in confusion. “I love when he does that,” she said. “Means he’s being brilliant, same as Loki when  _ he _ does it. And it means, we probably won’t die.” 

“Probably,” Thor agreed.

They stood in silence, watching as Fandral paced and muttered and occasionally looked back at the paper in his hand or the open journal on the desk. Eventually, he stopped and braced himself on the desk with both hands. 

“Okay,” Fandral’s voice was tight with something that sounded a lot like fear to Thor. “We’re going to put a cloak on each. I will bind them to you.  _ Nothing _ except my seidr will remove them, that’ll give you some protection. Thor will take you, Sif. I - I’m going to have to find a new pathway there, and I can’t walk Yggdrasil. Not without Loki.” He pushed off the desk and turned to face them. “We do this my way, or not at all,” he said firmly, and Thor hesitated. 

What if it was the wrong way? Loki usually made their plans, always looking ahead and able to see what they were missing or overlooking. Thor went in swinging and Fandral had always… 

He sighed to himself. Fandral had always just nodded and agreed, because the times he did open his mouth to add or to argue, Thor had been the one to disregard what he had to say or ignore it completely. 

The opinion of a  _ samkynhneigð maður, _ of one who fought from the shadows with a woman’s blade, had never mattered. 

And he could hear and see it all now. The resignation in his face and voice any time he’d tried to speak up, and the hurt everytime Thor shot it down. 

So he straightened his back and nodded once. “I’d be honoured to follow you into battle, Fandral,” he said quietly. “Tell me what to do.” 

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fandral, Thor and Sif learn to start working together to beat down an ancient and cruel evil.

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

* * *

Centuries. 

Centuries confined to this planet, locked within the atmosphere, her magic dissipating any time she tried to reach  _ beyond.  _ Centuries of trying to find a way  _ out,  _ of her immense power still being wanting. 

Centuries of hearing the creaking of branches, the rustling of leaves, of knowing that she was constantly being  _ watched _ but unable to move to where the watcher was. 

Trapped like a beast. Caged like a  _ dog.  _ And all because that damnable green-eyed little shit had fought back. Because, for some reason, the World Tree looked at him and saw someone more worthy than Angrboda. 

But she had learned how to listen long ago. She knew the sounds the Tree made when its pathways were growing. She knew it would only be a matter of time before more branches formed, before another sacrifice found its way to her altar, before she could feed and become  _ more.  _

Thin bones cracked beneath her teeth and blood and brains rushed into her mouth as she bit down on the head of the _rigning fugl_. She chewed as she listened to the trees of her planet groan and gossip. It had been a long time since the World Tree had touched the trees of her planet. They had forgotten what it meant to be a part of the greater world, of being of the universe. They were of her now. This whole planet had become hers. 

The trees, their brown bark having long since turned black and sticky, drew the deep ones from the dirt. The insects and fungi who were nothing more than the carrion eaters of other realms served her here. They feasted on the black sap of her trees, and she feasted on them, and the trees ate what she gave them in return. 

And the creatures who stubbornly tried to rise, the rain birds who move invisibly through the falling showers, and the dawn moths whose wings reflect the sun - they became hers, as well. 

Angrboda sank her teeth into the bloodied neck of the bird and sucked. The blood and the meat of the beast were inconsequential. She had long since stopped needing to eat. That was the need of the lesser creatures.

But the magic of the beast. Even so small a thing carried a delicious burst of seidr against her tongue. The smell of rain, warm and relieving, was crushed beneath her teeth as she drew in the creature’s magic and added it to her own. 

She could feel the whisper-memory of rain on her arms, watched as her skin faded, turning invisible with the beast’s magic. 

And people once looked on such creatures as unique for their ability. If only they knew it could have so easily been an ability they shared. 

Her black sap trees whispered oily secrets. The World Tree was touching again. They could feel it. Angrboda could feel it, the power of the thing. And she could feel how it wept and recoiled from her trees, from what she had made of her planet. Angrboda had become more with the World Tree gone. She had made her planet more. There was no death here, only the continuation. She had found immortality in the power of the death-eater beasts. She had learned the secrets the World Tree hid, and now she was greater. 

And now there was a pathway.

She could hear them. Their heartbeats were loud, the sound of their blood pumping a steady, gushing rhythm. There was life in the bitch that could be taken, useful, but the other.

Nature Magic was deliciously powerful, and it had been so long since she tasted god.

She called up the magic of her last one. She had enjoyed sinking her teeth into his soul. It had tasted wild, like air currents and the rushing waters of a stream. She called it up and it came to her, sliding like her trees’ sap into her fingers, beautiful and black and flecked with that delicious green. She let it curl over her, let it shift her form. 

A black snake slithered quietly through the maze of her forest, tongue flicking and tasting, listening as the trees whispered. Delicious godling with magic like the rain bird. And the bitch. She would take them both, one at a time. She would become one with the storms, as she had become one with the beasts, and before that, one with the water, and the fire, and the stone. She would feast, and then she would take the path and leave this planet, and she would sink her teeth into the trunk of the World Tree and take the worlds in hand.

* * *

Fandral lingered behind as he watched Thor and Sif step carefully out onto the dying planet. Finding it had taken him a little longer than he’d liked. It had taken him time to convince the shadows to open the pathway to it, and let him through. They very rarely fought back against him, and it was enough of a shock that they had, that he’d wasted precious time arguing. Yggdrasil, he assumed, had stepped in after a time and the entire shadowy realm he loved so dearly had shaken before settling. 

It had felt almost like being scolded.

He was starting to wish though, that Loki’s seidr was on a nicer planet. Like Vanaheim. Or even Midgard. Norway in particular, as he did so love it there. This place was like a cancer the way it pulled at his soul, at his  _ seidr _ . It was making him feel physically ill. The magic in the air was dirty, rotted and black. It whispered and mocked, jeered and taunted with every exhale the trees gave. It begged, pleaded and demanded to  _ die _ with every inhale. The entire planet was in a loop of constant decay and renewal. No matter where he looked or stepped, all he could feel was the filthy magic that clung to his skin like blood, and the way the shadows recoiled from its touch. It was sickening, but he ignored it and leapt lightly along the treeline, shadows swarming around him like a second skin and hiding him from the view of the witch. 

Thor stood in the clearing and swung Mjolnir in a wide arc, calling his lightning to crack and strike as he yelled and hollered for the one who had dared to lay a hand upon his brother. Sif stood at his side, sword in hand and a shield over the other. Both had odd cloaks of something scaly and slightly greasy looking over their shoulders, Thor’s usually obvious red cape missing from his pauldrons, and Sif’s favourite blue was missing. Fandral clung to the tree he was hiding in and watched carefully. 

_ There _ . 

Moving so slowly that he knew neither of them would have seen it yet, was a massive black snake, tongue flickering and tasting the air as it moved. The other creatures fled before it, and Fandral had to stamp down the urge to simply run down and slit the putrid things throat. 

Loki’s seidr was  _ dripping _ from its fangs. 

He could see it, could  _ feel  _ it. The same beautiful green as always, but it felt sick. Like it was dying in time with the stuttering heartbeat of the planet. 

It moved slowly, and Fandral was reminded of the slow movements of an Alfheim _ líkamsvakt _ dancer. The way it slipped through the decaying underbrush with almost sensuous rolls of its body, he knew that it was her. 

Angrboda. 

The Dark Witch of the Lost planet. The one that all seidr users were warned about on Alfheim and Vanaheim. Even on Hala and Sakaar he’d heard her name mentioned in warning against any who thought to twist the natural world to their whims. Whispered into learning ears as a cautionary tale against the lure of the dark edge to magic. 

He tracked her movements, and sent the signal to Sif. 

A tiny blue butterfly appeared in the cupped palm of her hand behind her shield, and Fandral saw it as the snake stiffened all over, head rising and tongue flickering faster as she no doubt tasted the magic in the air. 

Thor was still playing his part, calling loud, booming rolls of thunder and crashing lightning while bellowing for vengeance on his brother’s behalf. Sif fell into an easy stance at his side, eyes wary and body tensed and poised to attack or defend. Thor’s shift from blundering buffoon to battle ready warrior was less obvious - he still shouted, still swung Mjolnir from side to side as he paced, but he was on edge now, muscles bunched and ready. He was every bit as terrifying as he had been in Fandral’s nightmares of late. Fandral took a deep breath, gagged on the air but let it go slowly, forcing his heartbeat to slow and steady and shook the odd mood off. He could deal with his shit later. 

He crept forward, seidr shielded and protected in the shadows, and lurked nearby, waiting for the witch to strike. 

He didn’t have to wait for long. Angrboda rose from the ground in a twisting, writhing mass of coils, naked and unashamed as she took a step forwards, hips swaying enticingly and her hair brushing her thighs. She was well endowed, and he saw the way she jutted her breasts out towards Thor as she walked, watched her trace a hand idly from collarbone to nipple, then lower to lightly caress herself. There was something wild and carnal about her, and Fandral could see how so many would have fallen to her so easily. She exuded sensuality and a sense of lust that would have weaker men and women falling at her feet for a taste of her. 

He saw the way Thor’s eyes seemed to widen briefly before he narrowed them and demanded, “Are you the witch known as Angrboda? Speak!” 

Her voice was like honey scraped from the bottom of the honeycomb, deep and dark and  _ rich _ . “I am,” she purred, and the hairs on Fandral’s arms stood up. “And  _ you _ … you are a fierce storm who has come to me.” A long, pointed tongue flicked out to run over her lips before she turned her black eyes to Sif. “And you are my fun,” she said lowly, and Fandral saw the shudder of revulsion that Sif couldn’t hide. “Mmm, yes. I will take you first,” the witch hummed and took a single step forward, both hands relaxed at her sides and head tipped to the side like a bird as she stalked slowly forward.

Fandral ran his fingers over the small leather pouch fastened at his thigh and slipped them in, easily finding what he was seeking. A tiny glass bauble, no bigger than a blueberry and easily crushed between his fingers sent out his second signal. A single concentrated burst of Loki’s seidr, not dissimilar to the feeling in the air when Loki would step from Yggdrasil’s paths. 

He’d found enough of it in the cave that calling it to him, combining it with a piece of his own and letting it overwhelm it enough to take Loki’s form, had been tricky but easy enough. He dusted the remains of the tiny glass sphere from his hand and sank back down deeply into the shadows, trusting them to hide him. 

It was corroded and tarnished with the sick dark slick that clung to everything on her planet, but Angrboda was still connected to Yggdrasil. And Yggdrasil played her own part in his plan beautifully. 

A tiny doorway, there and gone in a flash at the same time as Loki’s seidr flared, and the witch was turning from Thor and Sif to seek him out. Thor struck swiftly, Sif at his side, but Fandral knew they would fail. Knew it, but hadn’t told them. He couldn’t take the risk that they would, in any way, change the plan or give him away. As far as they both knew, he was waiting to move in once she was down. 

But he had heard of Angrboda. He’d heard the stories that Loki and Thor never had. And he knew that a few strikes from a hammer and a wound from a sword would never be enough to kill her. But they’d be enough to keep her busy. 

“Can you see them?” he muttered, and felt the answering brush along his skin as the shadows answered. 

**_“We see.”_ **

The magic she called to her hands to throw Sif back was black as pitch, thick and gelatinous almost as it molded itself to her skin. Fandral felt a moments pity for her as Sif rolled to the side and was violently sick into the dying grass. Though she had no seidr of her own, to be hit like that would not be pleasant. Loki’s notes on the cloaks had at least been correct in that the magic had rolled off her without hurting her, but the dying magic was still like drinking poisoned water. Sif retched and gagged until nothing but bile came up, before she swiped a hand over her mouth and glared at the witch. She gathered her sword and shield, and charged her again, ducking and diving between the rapid series of strikes Angrboda unleashed, but was caught by a glancing blow to the head that sent her flying. 

“Wait,” he murmured as the shadows around him twisted and bobbed in concern. “Wait.” 

Thor’s next blow, following in the immediate moment after Angrboda’s fist had struck Sif, made contact, and the echo of Mjolnir as she crushed Angrboda’s skull in on itself seemed to resonate throughout the planet. He watched as Thor threw himself backwards, shaking the bits of bone, blood and brain from the hammer with a victorious whoop that quickly turned to a cry of dismay as Angrboda’s skull seemed to simply reappear. 

“Pitiful storm,” she hissed. “Must do better than that if you want me.” 

She thrust her hands outwards, and Fandral winced at the state of the magic she threw at him, but again, it simply rolled off. 

“What is this!” she shrieked. “Why are you standing still? Why do you not beg and writhe at my feet?” 

“Because you’re fucking  _ gross _ ,” Sif spat as Thor hauled her to her feet and steadied her. “Seriously. You’re like a walking description of why I hate sex.” 

“Bitch! I will  _ eat  _ your heart and bathe in your blood,” Angrboda seethed. “I will -”

“What? Monologue us to death?” Sif taunted, and Fandral grinned. 

“Smartass,” he whispered fondly, and began to move. A tiny prod here and there in the air around her, flickers of Loki’s seidr that he had trapped in more glass beads, gave the impression that the trickster was just beyond her sight, just beyond her reach. 

“SHOW YOURSELF!” she screamed and  _ finally _ moved the way Fandral had hoped she would. 

Angrboda and Loki both were connected to Yggdrasil, deeper than anyone, but her connection was warped. Twisted and  _ dark _ . And in the dark places were the shadows. 

She went deathly still and threw her head back, mouth opened wide and arms hanging gracefully in the air as a stream of black bile erupted from her throat and splattered onto the ground before her. The sludge drew itself up into shape after shape - humanoid, animal, insect and plant alike. They staggered about blindly as more and more bile spattered and dragged itself up until she let her head fall forwards, eyes burning and black dripping from her lips as she growled, “Now.” 

As one, the sludgy revenants staggered forwards towards Thor and Sif who both leapt back with horrified cries. 

“Now indeed,” Fandral grinned. “Dance with me, bitch.”

The shadows pushed at him affectionately before they swarmed forward like a tidal wave of darkness. He could see all the in-betweens and stars and galaxies as they moved and overrun the sludgy creatures easily. Angrboda didn’t seem to notice at first, until the shadows swelled and  _ sang _ as they consumed her putrid magic. The souls - for that was so obviously what they were - shone bright and pure in their place and as one, threw themselves at her. She shrieked and writhed, but they clung on, and Fandral watched the darkness being torn from her body. More and more and more of it, like the foul waters left behind after a flood, it rushed and filled the clearing. Sif and Thor were swiftly moved to a higher perch by Yggdrasil, as Angrboda’s screaming grew weaker and weaker. 

Fandral stepped free of his shadows and moved into the in-between space between Angrboda’s physical body and the souls swarming her. Nestled deep between another glowing orb of bright blue and gold that called to him, was an enormous piece of beautiful jade seidr. 

He grinned up at the bewildered and terrified witch and plunged his hand into her guts, shifting them aside and tearing through the physical barriers with a brutality he didn’t know he had. Fingers clasped over his prize, Fandral shoved his other hand in to take the seidr that was humming to him and tore his hands out. 

Angrboda slumped forward onto her knees, and the light of the souls finally faded away. 

“I know you, witch,” he said quietly. “And I bring you death.” 

Both balls of seidr rushed to his chest and Fandral staggered briefly at the feeling. His hand was steady though as he slowly drew his dagger over her throat and leaned in as the blood spurted and gushed, “You will not see Niflheim. You will know no peace.” He stepped back and shook his blade clean. “You’ll rot here, you foul bitch.” 

The planet shook and shuddered under his feet, and he glanced back over his shoulder to catch the confused looks Sif and Thor both were giving him. 

**_“Leave! Must leave!”_ **

They vanished from their branch before his eyes, and Fandral turned back in time to see the flesh begin to congeal and drip from Angrboda’s bones, to see the muscle waste and teeth loosen and fall. Eyes liquified and hair fell away in clumps as she rotted before his eyes. The planet  _ screamed _ and Fandral felt himself yanked backwards. He blinked, and opened his eyes at Loki’s bedside. 

Eir was shouting, Frigga sobbing and Helblindi was cursing loudly. 

Fandral stepped closer and saw Loki, thrashing and seizing on the bed, and acted on instinct. He drew the seidr up out of his chest and slammed it down into Loki’s. 

“Fuck you, you bastard,” he growled. “You don’t get to fucking die!” 

* * *

“You stupid boy!” Eir could feel the seidr rushing past her, Fandral’s familiar blue forcing its way into Loki, tangling deep. Her own seidr was nearly gone trying to keep Loki here this long. She didn’t have enough to pull Fandral out if he fought her. 

“One of you, get him out!” she snapped, pressing her own seidr against Loki’s heart as the thing thrashed in his chest.    
  
Fandral didn’t pull his seidr back out, though, and when she looked up, she saw Frigga holding Helblindi back. The woman was still crying, but there was a grin on her face, something fierce and near-feral with pride.    
  
She wasn’t foolish enough to think the queen had gone mad, though _how_ she hadn’t was a mystery she dearly wanted to solve. If only to save her own mind in the end.    
  
She could feel Fandral’s seidr pressing throughout Loki’s body, curling around hers where it worked to stabilize his heart. The boy had no seidr of his own left, though. Loki was completely dry, the bite mark on his shoulder turning black with infection and rot he couldn’t fight off, and the boy wasn’t accepting anyone else’s seidr anymore. The damn venom had done its work.    
  
“Fandral, pull back.” Loki’s movements were slowing, his heart quieting. “He’ll pull you with him, sweetheart. Let him go.”

Beside her, Fandral gave a sharp shake of his head, and Frigga was still standing back, and   
  
And there was green amongst the blue of Fandral’s seidr.    
  
She hadn’t noticed it, but it pressed forward, nudged this way and that by Fandral, pressed up against the choking yellow and black of the hearthound‘s venom.    
  
Loki’s thrashing stopped, his body going limp, and Eir was aware of the sound of Thor shouting and Sif crying. She kept her seidr focused on the boy’s heart, squeezing in time with her own heartbeat. She could feel his chest moving beneath her hands as Fandral forced air into him.    
  
And she could feel Loki’s seidr. More where there hadn’t been any, pressing hard against the venom in the wound even as it branched off and began to feed through the rest of his body, curling here and there, stringing itself up like lights, or more like a spider forming a web.    
  
Loki’s heart beat sharply in her grasp and the boy sucked in a lungful of air. Eir grabbed the edge of the bed as she stumbled, what was left of her seidr slipping out of Loki and curling protectively in her own chest.    
  
She could see Loki lying still on the bed, blessedly breathing, with Fandral’s hands still pressed to his chest. There was a tinge of light to the bite in his shoulder, green peeking through the black as his impossible seidr fought the poison, pushing it out.    
  
Eir felt arms curl around her, pulling her away from the bed. “Stupid boy,” she muttered, and wondered when she had shut her eyes.    
  
“He is,” Sif said, guiding her into a chair. “They both are.”   
  
Eir rested her head against the girl’s shoulders, feeling every one of her years, Apple be damned. “Don’t let Fandral get pulled to Niflheim.”   
  
“We won’t. It’s all right, Eir. We’ve got them.”

* * *

Fandral was swaying as he stood at Loki’s side, hands pressed firmly against his brother’s chest, seidr flowing between them so brightly and so strong that even he could clearly see it.

The bite at Loki’s shoulder was… fading. Thor tightened his grip on Sif’s waist and pulled her closer. “I think we need to wait,” he said softly when she twitched again. “Let him work.” 

He felt like he was drowning and flying and falling and sitting all at once. 

Loki was _blue_. Loki had horns, and raised markings on his skin, and Thor knew if he opened his eyes they’d be red. 

“He’s pretty,” Sif muttered. “In blue.” Thor nodded. 

It was still… still Loki. Surely. He assumed it was some spell byproduct to keep Loki’s temperature down so he didn’t die from fever. 

“It’ll fade,” he said. “The spell will wear off.”

It felt like hours later that Fandral moved again, but a glance at the window told him barely a quarter hour had passed. The thief took a shaking step closer still to the bed, hands still pressed onto Loki’s chest and brushed their noses together in an intimate gesture Thor had never seen before. “Wake up,” he whispered. “Loki. Wake up.” 

He watched Fandral rest his forehead on Loki’s, and noticed for the first time just how filthy the man was. He was covered in the stinking bile that the witch had vomited her creations from, and there was a thick spray of blood across his cheekbones that made Thor think of freckles. 

Really morbid, gross freckles. He sighed and scrubbed a weary hand down his face, pausing to scratch at his beard. 

“Will he wake?” He asked his mother. The Jotun he had no idea about, but he was too damned tired to care anymore. Frigga smiled at him - thankfully calmer than before, and nodded at the bed.

The quiet murmuring sounds that Fandral was making at the bed abruptly stopped. 

“Y-you… _stink_.” 

Thor laughed so hard he cried. 

* * *

He was very tired and very, very sore. It felt like every muscle he had ached, and there was something hot that throbbed in his shoulder in time with his heartbeat. 

He remembered teeth being there before, tearing into him. Remembered all the blood he couldn’t stop, and then golden eyes and hands pressing and Fandral.    
  
“Missed you,” he mumbled, his eyes sliding closed. How irritating. Fandral was here. He certainly didn’t want to sleep and miss the chance to talk to him.    
  
“Next time, just say so, yeah? You don’t have to be so fucking dramatic to get my attention.”   
  
There was a wealth of fear in that tone. Bit of anger too. Probably understandable.    
  
“S’ry. Was big.”    
  
Biggest hearthound he’d ever seen. Loki frowned a little as his shoulder twinged, shifting to try and settle the pain. It only made everything else ache in protest.    
  
Fingers slid into his and he sighed, closing his own around them. That felt nice. Good. Perfect, really. “Ven’m?” He’d been bitten, and honestly, all that blood... he hadn’t expected to wake up.    
  
“All burned out,” Fandral said quietly. Fingers touched his shoulder, cool against the hot skin. “You’re going to have a lovely scar.”   
  
He huffed a breath out of his nose. “Add it t’my collection.” He could feel himself slipping away, sleep rising up around him like trees growing too fast to stay above. “Stink,” he mumbled.    
  
“Yes, I know.”    
  
He wanted to ask why. How? But his mind was sliding away and they were less important. “Stay,” he mumbled, forcing his eyes open. It was hard to focus, but there was golden hair and honeyed eyes. “Drag’slay’r,” he mumbled, and wanted to ask Fandral to still be there when he woke up, but there were tall trees and comfortable shade and warm blankets and he fell down into what felt like the first real sleep in a long time.    


* * *

He waited until Loki’s eyes closed and his breathing steadied out before he carefully slipped his fingers free. “I am going to bathe and sleep,” he said quietly. “And I think you two- ” Fandral pointed at Thor and then Sif “- should do the same. There’s shit to discuss, we’ll do it tomorrow.” 

He stumbled over to where Frigga was standing and pulled her into a hug. “I stink,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. But he’s healed and he’s here.” He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, and whispered, “Go to bed, Mother.” 

He’d blame it on exhaustion tomorrow. 

Eir was snoring deeply in another bed, and Fandral just nodded politely at Helblindi. He could sort himself out. He was big and blue and grown up. Helblindi laughed. 

“I am indeed big, blue and grown up,” he said cheerfully. “And you’re dead on your feet.” 

Fandral felt like he’d barely blinked and he was suddenly sitting in a tub of hot water with a Jotun scrubbing him down efficiently. He tipped his head back to ask a question but yawned instead. Another blink and he was dried and dressed and being chivvied to climb in beside Loki, mutterings about mates and love and bullshit in his ears. 

“What is even happening?” He asked and Helblindi simply patted his head. 

“You keep passing out so I washed you because you smelled just… so bad,” he said. “Now go the fuck to sleep.”

Fandral tried to open his mouth to complain, but his eyes closed instead.

* * *


End file.
